Celebrating Five Years of Blogging

After five years I believe writing a blog is one of the most rewarding aspects of doing family history and genealogy work. To celebrate here are some current statistics as of today, 24 April 2016.

Pageviews for all-time 67,406
Pageviews for today, April 24, 2016 - 72, last post February 28, 2016
Months with the most pageviews
April 2103 - 1764
March 2014 - 1747
January 2016 - 1503

Blog Archive, posts per year
2016 - 3
2015 - 12
2014 - 37
2013 - 56
2012 - 105
2011 - 80

Comments - 100




Followers
Google Family Connect - 72
Networkblogs - 11

Most read post, Genealogy Serendipity Moments, May 13, 2011 - 1400 views

Dates of the current top ten posts viewed:
2011 - 3
2012 - 4
2013 - 1
2014 - 1
2015 - 1

Pages and views
Portland, Oregon World War II - 2390
Daniel Tidd Article - 1013
Calendar - 781
GFO Bulletin Articles - 743
Adril Gates Article - 662
Book Reviews - 631
Amos Tidd Family Article - 585
Lectures - 573
Book Wish List - 510
Ole A. Brown Article - 488

Traffic Sources -
Referring Sites
Google.com - 5882
gophergenealogy.blogspot.com - 2293
networkedblogs.com - 645
geneamusings.com - 363
facebook.com - 235
blogegon.com - 149

Keywords
gopher genealogy - 61
aarpdiscount - 61

Audience
United States - 38074
Germany - 4533
France - 3407
Russia - 3330
Ukraine - 2946
Canada - 795
United Kingdom - 647
Lativa - 569
Turkey - 537
China - 428

By Browsers
Firefox - 21999 (33%)
Internet Explorer - 20303 (30%)
Chrome - 14549 (21%)
Safari - 5639 (8%)

Operating Systems
Windows - 50719 (75%)
McIntosh - 7334 (10%)
Linux - 3493 (5%)

The statistics make me feel that even though my writing has slowed to a crawl in the past year people keep viewing the past posts and pages on a regular basis. My goal for the coming year is to at least double the amount of articles. There is certainly plenty to write about, but sometimes life just gets complicated. Putting one's mind in the mood for writing is critical. Usually the hardest part is just getting started. The comments and followers have remained fairly limited, but steady. Almost all comments have been positive and usually with an interest about a particular family written about.

The most read post, Genealogy Serendipity Moments, May 13, 2011 - 1400 views, is one of my earliest written posts. Serendipity moments are also a focus of the blog in general.  The top viewed posts by years are fairly consistent and show that as time passes some of the older posts continue to be viewed.

The most read page, Portland, Oregon World War II - 2390 views, is one of my earliest articles written for the GFO Bulletin. It may be being used as a reference article for classroom instruction. The other nine pages have views of about 500-1000. Four of the pages are articles written about ancestral families. The others include the calendar of classes taught, a list of Bulletin articles written, a list of book reviews written, lectures information, and a book wish list.

Of the six referring sites, Google.com with 5882 hits and gophergenealogy.blogspot.com with 2293 hits are the most productive. The other four seem to occur due to a review of a blog posting. Any referrals are greatly appreciated. The Keywords for searches, gopher genealogy and aarpdiscount, both with 61 hits, are interesting. There is no known connection to aarpdiscount unless it was a brief mention of their discount for an ancestry.com subscription.

The audience portion of the statistic is very informative. The United States seems to be where the most viewers live. The four European countries seem consistent, but Canada and the United Kingdom are much smaller than expected. The last three countries come from areas where one might expect less viewers.

The different browsers and operating systems were somewhat surprising. With Windows at 75% and McIntosh at 10% it would seem to indicate what type of computer systems viewers are using. Handheld devises were minimal.

Statistics certainly do not drive the purpose of the blog, but they do give a writer an opportunity to review the impact of certain aspects of the blog. For me the love a writing continues to be putting into words the serendipity moments and results of researching family history. Thank you for being a part of that audience and for your support and encouragement.