Statistics for the sixth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News

I promised a statistics entry and teased it yesterday, so it's time to deliver.

As of 11:59 P.M. E.D.T. on March 20, 2016, I had posted 2724 total entries, the blog had earned 595,621 page views, and the readers and I together posted 1307 comments over the blog's first five years.  As of that same time on March 20, 2017, those totals had reached 3101 entries, 948,385 page views, and 1903 comments during the first six years of the blog.  Consequently, the sixth year of the blog saw me post 377 entries, which earned 352,764 page views and 596 comments from my readers and me.  For comparison, the fifth year of the blog recorded 435 entries, which earned 176,458 page views and 443 comments.*

Follow over the jump for my analysis of these numbers.

For the past three years, my goal has been to increase page views per post while still increasing my overall readership.  Once again, I succeeded spectacularly, in fact, beyond my wildest expectations.  Page views increased by 99.91% (176,306) last year over the year before, much larger than the previous year's 20.97%.  Meanwhile, I posted 48 fewer entries, a decrease of 13.33%.  The result was an increase of page views per entry posted from 405.65 during 2015-2016 to 935.71, an increase of 130.67%.  Not only is that more than double last year's growth of 46.83% and nearly double the year before's increase of 69.32%, it's the largest increase in this metric in the history of the blog.  I have to go back to the statistics for the second year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News to find anything close, an increase in both overall page views and page views per post of 104%.  Wow!  To repeat what I wrote last year, "I'm still growing my readership without feeling that I'm working too hard,  I'm still at least a couple of years away from reaching the point of diminishing returns again."

Of course, if total page views per year are up 99.91%, so are page views per month.  During the fifth blogging year, that metric was 14,704.83.  This past year, it jumped to 29,397.00.  I was hoping for an average of 16,500 and 17,500 and I ended up with 10,000 more than the higher target number.  Again, wow!  The stats look even better if I consider just the most recent five complete months, October 2016 through February 2017.  That period averaged 38,776.2 page views per month.  That would be on the high side of what I'll shoot for next year; I'd settle for 31,000 to 35,000 per month.

As for the source of my greater readership, I credit the increased page views to four factors, First, I've been sharing 2-5 links a month to my blog at the Coffee Party USA Facebook page, which can draw thousands of readers with each share.  In addition, the background rate of page views has been increasing.  Third, Infidel 753 has been linking to my blog regularly at his blog and Crooks&Liars.  Thanks, Infidel!

Finally, January through March saw something very odd -- big surges of page views that last a day, then abate for a couple of days, then resume.  On a minute-by-minute basis, they appear as bursts of 5-10 page views a minute for five or so minutes.  At first they're spaced 30 minutes apart.  After a few hours, the intervals shrink to 25 minutes, then 20 a few hours later, then 15 minutes a few hours after that, then 10 minutes, and finally a few hours of five or more pages per minute continuously for a couple of hours.  After that, back to normal, which consists of cycling between 10 and 50 page views per hour over 3-4 hours.  These episodes can peak at more than 300 page views an hour and result in more than 3,000 page views in a day.  It looks like some type of bot that is making itself conspicuous.  Unlike earlier episodes of bots increasing page views, which usually originated in Russia, this activity is coming from within the United States.  I find the whole thing very strange.

On the other hand, I am sharing fewer links at Greer's and Kunstler's blogs.  Since October, I've been leaving one or two comments per month total at each blog instead of four or five a year ago.  They are likely to remain minor sources of page views, as Greer has ceased blogging at The Archdruid Report, while I'm more disenchanted with Kunstler all the time, even though he's blogging twice a week now.  I'd rather not be seen with his commenters on a frequent basis.

Comments went up by 35.54% (153) over last year.  It wasn't as impressive as last year's 99.45%, but it still set a record.  Also impressive were the comments per entry (1.58) and per month (49.67), both of which were also records.  As for comments per page view, that was down to 0.0017 from 0.0025.*  That's what happens when bots instead of real people read my blog.  Speaking of real people, I want to thank my regular commenters, Infidel 753, Kevin Robbins, and Paul W. for stopping by and adding their reactions and observations.  You all make up for the bots and spammers.

Finally, it's time to review the top nine foreign countries providing readers to my blog.  Russia remains the top international source of page views with 43,810 total, up from last year's 28,960.  Germany remains in third at 27,531, up from 19,646.  The U.K. stayed in fourth with 24,438, an increase from 18,866.  France and Canada have switched places with Canada in fifth at 23,788, up from 17,782 and France in sixth with 23,056, rising from 18,223.  Ukraine, China, and Australia remain in seventh through ninth with 13,669, 13,237, and 5832, not much changed from last year's 13,260, 12,921, and 4,026, respectively.  Finally, Turkey has fallen out of the top ten, replaced by South Korea with 2,018.  Welcome to my readers from South Korea!

Stay tuned for the top posts of last year.

*People who clicked on the link and read last year's statistics entry should have noticed a discrepancy in the comments I recorded above and the ones I reported a year ago.

Between March 21, 2015, and March 20, 2016, I posted 435 entries, which earned 176,458 page views and 672 comments from my readers and me.  These are out of totals of 2724 entries, 595,621 page views, and 1309 during the first five years of the blog. For comparison, I present the statistics from the previous four years.

During the fourth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News, from March 21, 2014 to March 20, 2015, I posted 528 entries, the readers and I posted 229 comments, and the blog received 145,875 page views for a total of 2289 posts, 637 comments, and 419,163 page views over the entire first four years of the blog.*  For comparison, the third year of this blog saw 785 entries, 304 comments, and 127,945 page views, the second year I posted 493 entries, readers and I posted 129 comments, and the blog received 97,535 page views, and the first full year I made 483 posts, readers and I posted 204 comments, and the blog received 47,808 page views.

...
More than half the comments this blog received in its history were posted last year, 672 out of 1309.  Compared to last year's 229, that's an increase of 193.45%!  Sliced other ways, that translates to 1.54 comments per entry and 56.0 comments per month.  In contrast, the year before saw 0.43 comments per entry and 19.08 per month.  Even comments per page view rose from 0.00157 to 0.0038, an increase of 142.04%.

I turns out that I forgot a year's statistics and included a couple of comments I shouldn't have.  The correct number for the total number of total entries according to the stats I had compiled up to then, was 866 not 672.  Oops.


I'll get around to posting a correction in comments to the original.

Statistics entries from previous years.

• Statistics for the fifth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News
• Statistics for the fourth year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News
• Statistics for the third year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News
• Second Year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News: Statistics
• The first year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News: Part 1 of several