Friday, March 23, 2018

Stats for the seventh year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News


I twice promised a statistics entry, so it's time to deliver.

As of 11:59 P.M. E.D.T. on March 20, 2017, I had posted 3101 total entries, the blog had earned 948,385 page views, and the readers and I together posted 1,903 comments over the blog's first seven years.  As of that same time on March 20, 2018, those totals had reached 3465 entries, 1,630,513 page views, and 2,391 comments during the first six years of the blog.  Consequently, the seventh year of the blog saw me post 364 entries, which earned 682,128 page views and 488 comments from my readers and me.*  For comparison, the sixth year of the blog recorded 377 entries, which earned 352,764 page views and 596 comments.

Follow over the jump for my analysis of these numbers.

For the past four 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 93.37% (329,364) last year over the year before, slightly less than the previous year's very high 99.91%.  Meanwhile, I posted 13 fewer entries, a decrease of 3.45%.  The result was an increase of page views per entry posted from 935.71 during 2016-2017 to 1873.98, an increase of 100.27% (938.27).  That is also less than last year's growth of 130.67% but still more than double the year before's increase of 46.83%.  Despite the slight decrease in page view growth, I am pleased at the overall increase of the blog's readership.  To repeat what I wrote last year and the year before, "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 93.37%, so are page views per month.  During the sixth blogging year, that metric was 29,397.00.  This past year, it jumped to 56,844.00.  I was hoping for an average of 31,000 and 35,000 and I ended up with 20,000 more than the higher target number.  Wow!  As for the eighth year, I think a goal of 60,000 to 65,000 page views per month is achievable, although I will have to work to reach 82,000 page views this coming October and 76,000 the November after that in order to continue readership being up every month year-over-year.  Wish me luck.

Once again, I credit the increased page views to three factors, First, I've been sharing 10-12 links a month to my blog at the Coffee Party USA Facebook page, which can draw thousands of readers with each share.  Second, the background rate of page views continues to increase.  Third, Infidel 753 has been linking to my blog regularly at his blog and Crooks&Liars for another year.  Thanks, Infidel!

One phenomenon that increased my page views last year and this year diminished markedly in December 2017 -- bot traffic.  During October and November 2017, it lifted my readership to record levels, 81,888 for October and 75,405 in November.  Without substantial bot traffic, page views in December dropped to 46,630, well above my goal for last year but below the monthly average.  On the one hand, I'm relieved, as I was always ambivalent about it.  I was wondering why bots were reading my blog and who they were working for.  I also didn't like having my page views inflated by readers that weren't actual humans.  On the other, it made it (too) easy to meet my page view goals.  Now I'll have to work harder.

I am also reducing another source of readership, as I am sharing even fewer links at Greer's and Kunstler's blogs.  I didn't leave any comments at Kunstler's blog from June to January, as I have become even more disenchanted with him and his commenters.  In fact, I finally stopped showing "The End of Suburbia" to my students because of my being fed up with Kunstler, replacing it with "Treasures of the Earth: Power."  As for Greer, his entries at Ecosophia.net haven't lent themselves to my posting comments with links to my blog as much as his posts at The Archdruid Report.  I still comment there, but more to engage with Greer's ideas than to lure readers here.

Comments went down by 18.12% (108) over last year along with comments per entry (1.34, down from 1.58) and per month (40.67, down from 49.67).*  I'm not pleased, but I'm not upset, either, as comments are the one statistic I have the least control over.  As for comments per page view, that was down to 0.0005 from 0.0017.  As I wrote last year, that's what happens when bots instead of real people read my blog.  Speaking of real people, I again thank my regular commenters, Infidel 753, Kevin Robbins, Nebris, and Paul W., along with newcomers Ranch Chimp and Green Eagle, 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 54,221 total, up from last year's 43,810.  Canada jumped from fifth to third with 34,163 page views, up from 23,788 last year.  Germany fell to fourth at 32,909, up from 27,531.  The U.K. dropped to fifth close behind Germany with 32,184, an increase from 24,438.  France remained in sixth with 28,921, rising from 23,056.  Ukraine, China, and Australia remain in seventh through ninth with 14,868, 13,527, and 7,615, not much changed from last year's 13,669, 13,237, and 5,832, respectively except for Australia, which increased by 1,783 or 37.6%.  I'm glad to see more Aussies reading my blog.  Finally, South Korea has fallen out of the top ten, replaced by Italy with 4,241, more than double the 2,018 page views from South Korea at this time last year.  Welcome to my readers from Italy!

Stay tuned for the top posts of last year after Earth Hour, and Marche du Nain Rouge.

*There were also 61 comments over the history of the blog sent directly to the spam folder, including 40 during just the past blogging year.  If those had been included, then the total number of comments would have been 2452 and comments this year would have been 528.  That would have raised the comments per post and per day to 1.45 and per month to 44.00.  Those still would have been less than last year.

Statistics entries from previous years.
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)