Thursday, March 23, 2023

Stats for the 12th year of Crazy Eddie's Motie News on Throwback Thursday


It's time to review the statistics for the twelfth year of this blog.

As of 11:59 PM EDT March 20, 2022, this blog had a lifetime total of 3,821,974 page views, 5,418 total posts, and 3,979 comments. Minus the 3,402,674 page views, 5,039 total posts, and 3,857 comments as of March 20, 2021, that means this blog earned 419,300 page views and 122 published comments on 379 posts between March 21, 2022 and March 20, 2023. Blogger shows 168 comments, but the 46 comment difference almost certainly comes from unpublished comments that the spam filter caught and I didn't release. They can stay there. On the other hand, Blogger displays ~418,000 page views, less than my calculations. I've guessed before that Blogger's counter starts at the beginning of the oldest complete month, so it cuts off the last ten days of March 2022 and begins with April 1, 2022, no fooling. The things I learn when I dig through the data.

Speaking of digging through the data, it's showing a concerning trend. While the 419,300 page views easily exceeded the 306,129 page view goal (306,235 if I strictly stick to 839 page views per day) I set for the blog last year, it's less than the 532,981 page views the blog earned between March 21, 2021 and March 20, 2022. I also missed a monthly page view goal for the first time since November 2019 when the blog earned only 19,772 page views during February 2023, when my goal was 23,492. Also, the blog nearly missed its page view goal of 26,000 for January 2023, passing it between 10:00 and 11:00 A.M. on January 31, 2023, ending the month with 32,173 page views, thanks to my German and Swedish readers, who provided 6.62K and 1.58K page views respectively on the last day of the month, which had the most page views of the twelfth year of the blog with 10,566. Wow and whew! Unlike the past few years, when I wrote "I'm not worried" about reaching my page view goals, I am a little worried now. I'd be more worried if the blog weren't already five days ahead of my page view goal for the month so far. I need only four more days at 839 page views per day to reach March 2023's page view goal. That's reassuring, but I feel like knocking on wood.

Follow over the jump for the rest of my analysis of the past year.

Another reason I'm starting to worry is that I'm no longer getting more page views while working less. On the contrary, I'm starting to get fewer page views while working harder. Last year, the blog averaged 1,452.26 page views per post and 1,460.22 page views per day. This year, the blog averaged 1,106.33 page views per post and 1,148.77 page views per day. I started posting more during the first three months of 2023 to try to make my monthly total page view goals, 35 during January, 30 during February, and 25 during the first 20 days of March. This makes me anxious about raising my page view goals this year. Still, I did make last year's goals, so will follow through on my promise to increase the goal for the 2023-2024 blogging year to 25,000 per 29-day month because the 2023-2024 blogging year includes February 2024, which will have 29 days. I can then say I have page view goals of at least 25,000 every month, not just the eleven with at least 30 days. Here's to hoping I make it.

Comments decreased from 238 or 235 to 122 or 168, depending on which count I use. Since I don't set comments goals and comments are out of my control, I'm not concerned. Last year, I averaged 0.65 or 0.64 comments per post depending on which comment number I used. This year, it fell to 0.44 for the higher comment count and 0.32 for the lower comment count. Since a lot of my comments are spam and I'm seeing less spam, maybe this is a good thing.

As for my commenters who aren't spammers, I'd like to thank them, beginning with continuing commenters Infidel753, Nebris, the first commenter on my blog, Paul W., and Sarnia Sam. Keep up the good work! I also want to thank Powers, Sicko Ricko, Expat, verbum, Buzzcook, Bruce.desertrat, and emjayjay for joining my commentariat. Also, Friend of the Court reappeared after an absence of at least a year and my old buddy Narb Xorbian, who reappeared last year, just made a comment today using a different account. Once again, welcome back. Unfortunately, Dwight Williams and J. Bermudez, who made their first comments last year, have both gone missing in action. Come back!


My top three sources of page views maintained their rankings this past year even as their numbers decreased, sometimes markedly. All the various varieties of Facebook once again provided the number one source of page views with 47,847 between March 21, 2021 and March 20, 2022, mostly from the mobile app. I attribute the bulk of those from promoting my posts at the Coffee Party USA Facebook page and the Crazy Eddie's Motie News page (if you're on Facebook, please like the page!). That's a big decrease from last year's 83,737. Google again came in second with 9,606 page referrals, a third consecutive decrease from the year before, although last year was close with 10,367. Twitter remained in third with 2,172 page referrals, down from last year's 3,327 link clicks from tweets, at least the second consecutive decline. This came despite my friend Kevin G.'s tweeting links to my blog every month until October, when Elon Musk took over Twitter and Kevin decided to become less active there. Thanks, Kevin, you tried. Blogger seach inside Crazy Eddie's Motie News provided 1,822 referrals to rank fourth, an increase from last year's 1,421, although I think that was the result of Russians trying to do something on or to the blog one day. It was still enough to pass Infidel753's blog, which fell to fifth place with 1,443, much less than last year's 2,119 and even less than the year before. Just the same, thanks to Infidel for linking to me in his Sunday blog roundups and maintaining the blog on his blogroll. Speaking of blogrolls, my listing on No More Mr. Nice Blog's blogroll resulted in 1,334 page view, a big jump from last year's 364 referrals. No More Mr. Nice Blog jumped from tenth to sixth place. Thanks, Steve M. and all of your readers! Bing fell to seventh, dropping from 1,325 referrals last year to 687 referrals. Pinterest fell to eighth while page views rose from 637 to 643 page referrals. Crooks and Liars returned to the top ten, placing ninth with 600, an increase from last year's eleventh pace and 268 referrals. Thanks to Infidel753, Tengrain, Jon Perr, Driftglass, and Steve in Manhattan for linking to my blog! Finally, I submitted a post to Vagabond Scholar for the Jon Swift blog roundup and it was enough to send 281 referrals my blog's way. While RLW at Boat Bits continued linking to my blog last year, sending me 122 referrals, enough for 13th place, he quit blogging in January of this year. He will be missed. Thank you to all of my fellow bloggers who have linked to me. It's good to have friends like you.

I'm adding a note about search terms to my usual analysis. "Insulin" and "promotional" tied for first place with 152 results each. Considering how much I mention my diabetes and use movie and TV trailers, I'm not surprised. At least that material attracts readers. "Chicken farming" came in third, which made me glad I blogged about it last Food Day. "Gamestop" returns in fourth, although with fewer results, 47, than last year's number nine result at 109. The fifth place result, "national sex day" with 30, puzzles me. I have no entry by that name, although that day exists; it's June 9 (6/9). Maybe I should observe it. The six place result has me outright flummoxed: 13%3a14, which sent readers to my blog 15 times last year. I looked it up and it's 13-14. That does retrieve results, but why anyone would search for it is beyond me. "Bad Education" came in seventh with ten results. I have blogged about that TV movie, so I'm glad people are reading about it. When combined, the search results for "All the Beauty and the Bloodshed" add up to six results, good for eighth. "Pet owner," "swimming," and "Tooning Out the News" tied with four results for ninth through eleventh to round out the top ten.


Finally, it's time to review the top countries providing readers to my blog. I begin with the annual statistics.

As one can see from the image above, the United States provided the most readers with 175,369, less than last year's 236,791 page views. Since this is a U.S.-based blog and I write for a U.S. audience, that comes as no surprise. France remained in second with 130,145, a slight drop from last year's 138,445. My French readers supported this blog's page views until the day after Christmas, when they suddenly became scarce. That resulted in nearly missing my page view goal during January 2023 and actually missing my goal during February 2023. Come back! I miss you! Sweden stayed in third, but with 24,682, less than half of last year's 53,338 page views. Canada climbed over Germany, reaching fourth with 19,548 visits, an increase from last year's 17,665. Germany dropped one place again to fifth with 17,107, a decrease from 18,566 page views last year. The Netherlands continued climbing to sixth with 11,285, up from last year's 3,182 in ninth. Russia fell from fifth to seventh while cutting their page views from 18,476 last year to 5,772 this year. I may miss their page views, but I don't miss them.

The United Kingdom returned to the top ten with 1,874 page views to place eighth, jumping up from twelfth last year even with fewer page views than last year's 2,112. Ukraine made a bigger leap from out of the top nineteen to ninth with 1,272. Welcome back! So did Taiwan, entering the top ten at tenth with 1,232. South Korea moved up to eleventh with 914, an increase over last year's sixteenth place with 889 page views. Australia also returned to the top nineteen, reaching twelfth with 847. So did Belgium, which contributed 764 to reach thirteenth and Hong Kong in fourteenth with 737. Again, welcome back. India appeared in the top nineteen at fifteenth with 604, while Ireland sank to sixteenth with 520, a drop from last year's fifteenth place 1,362. Japan fell from eighth last year with 3,252 to seventeenth with 436. A location I didn't know existed, the Åland Islands, appeared with 305 to rank eighteenth. Saudi Arabia rounded out the top nineteen with 248 in nineteenth. Mousing over the map shows Iran with 237 page views for twentieth.

Indonesia, Portugal, Italy, Turkey, Estonia, Romania, Vietnam, and South Africa all fell out of the top nineteen to become part of the mass of other countries that combined for 24,080 page views. Maybe I'll see some of these countries in next year's statistics.


Now for the all-time readership numbers by country. The United States has contributed 2,519,770 page views to remain number one all-time, and the top three other countries have remained where they were last year. France held onto second with 320,368 total page views. Sweden stayed in third with 133,028. Congratulations and welcome to readers from both countries. Stick around. Canada and Russia switched places, with Canada taking fourth with 109,549 page views while Russia slid to fifth with 107,983. Germany stayed in sixth with 101,571, followed by the United Kingdom in seventh with 55,074. Despite not making the 2022-2023 top nineteen, Italy remained in eighth place with 35,947. Ukraine also held its ninth place spot at 30,187, noticeably more than last year's 29,017. The Netherlands moved up from thirteenth to tenth among actual countries with 17,838 more than double last year's 6,272. China fell out of the top ten landing at eleventh among actual countries with page views declining slightly from last year with 13,500 to 13,497. Unknown Region remained ahead of China with 16,786, which is identical to last year. Good, Unknown Region is not being credited with any more page views.

Australia dropped one place to in twelfth among actual countries while still increasing page views from last year's 10,701 to 11,533. Come on, 2,000 more and you'll pass China. United Arab Emirates lost page views from 7,466 to 7,474 and dropped a spot to thirteenth as The Netherlands climbed over it; Blogger does that to page views over time. Poland reversed its page views trend by increasing from 5,506 to 5,684 and remaining in fourteenth. Indonesia and Japan swapped places with Japan in fifteenth with 5,596 and Indonesia in sixteenth among actual countries with 5,366. Singapore stayed in seventeenth while its page views held at 4,606. Hong Kong returned to the top nineteen (eighteen actual countries) with 4,603 total page views. Brazil fell out of the overall top nineteen, with the pop-up when I mouse over the actual map shows it lost page views from 4,523 last year to 4,474, Good enough for nineteenth among actual countries, but Unknown Region still keeps it out of the overall top nineteen — another reason to wish it never existed. Minus Brazil, there have been 311,904 page views from all the other countries of the world with readers of my blog over the past dozen years.

That's it for this year's statistics post. I'll get to the top post of last year on Sunday, April 2nd. I plan on posting a retrospective on a different subject tomorrow for Flashback Friday. Stay tuned.

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2 comments:

  1. Infidel753March 24, 2023 at 6:50 AM

    My own page views dropped about 30% around mid- to late December, and have been slowly creeping back up since then. Your graph at the top of this post seems to show a similar pattern -- if you ignore that odd spike at the beginning of February, the general level of the line after late December is noticeably lower than for the whole period before, but March is looking a bit higher. I've seen a couple of other bloggers mention something similar. So either there's been a general drop in interest in blogs this year, or there's been some change in the way Blogspot's stat counter works. Maybe it's just doing a better job of excluding bots from the numbers.

    I've seen signs that Blogspot's stat counter isn't very accurate. For example, there was a period when it showed about a quarter of my page views coming from France, although there's no obvious reason why my blog would be of special interest to French people, and I never got any comments from people in France. Also, when I get a big surge in views because some large site links to a specific post, the count of referrals from that site and the jump in page views for that post are often wildly different, though logically the numbers should be similar.

    So I'm not sure how much the stat counter really tells you. It probably gives you a good general picture of how many views your blog is getting, but I wouldn't trust it too much on the details.

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    Replies
    1. Pinku-SenseiMarch 25, 2023 at 3:02 PM

      Thanks for stopping by and sharing your comment!

      First, oh, good, it's not just me. Yes, you're reading the graph the same way I do. I can pinpoint the date when the page views dropped to December 26, 2022, when the French readership suddenly disappeared. Both of your interpretations are possible; what I've been calling the default page views, which appear under stats, and the raw page views, which appear under posts, only approximately match and the default page views tend to increase rapidly and slowly decline, while the raw page views just go up. I've decided to rank my posts by raw page views because of that.

      That written, I favor a third possibility that makes me sound a bit paranoid. I think some organization in France had been monitoring American blogs, probably for sentiment analysis to see how Americans were expressing our emotional states during 2022. Once the year ended, the study stopped and the page views went away. That's what I think the Russians have been doing all along, so I'm glad that, whatever they're doing, they're doing less of it. At least I know when and why I got Swedish readers; I tweeted at Greta Thunberg and they showed up!

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