My Blog Stats For 2010

I met up with a non-blogger friend of mine last month for breakfast, and the conversation turned to my sick writing hobby. “How many hits a day do you get on your blog?” he asked. He was genuinely curious.

In some circles, this might be considered to be a rude and much-too-personal question, like asking how much money you make, or how much weight you have gained this past year. But I didn’t care. It’s not like I’m in some kind of competition. Plus, I thought, as one unfamilar with the blogoshpere, this number will be meaningless to him.

“I get about 3,000 page views a month.” I told him, taking the liberty to round up. I imagined how the enormity of that number would ring in his ears like a loud gong announcing my online arrival.

“That’s all?” he retorted with a disapointed grimace. He apparently knew a little more about internet traffic than I thought.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that’s all.

After 2 and 1/2 years of blogging, hundreds of posts, sevearal high-visibility mentions, ping-backs and guest posts on much more famous sites, an article published in a respectable business magazine, and thousands – okay, hundreds – of comments on other blogs, I get on average about 93 page views per day.

This is a far cry from my goal in 2009 of reaching 1,000 page views per day (ha ha ha, wasn’t I so innocent and determined back then), but there you have it.

I suppose I could have blogged harder, obsessed more, worked to get myself more exposure, more connections, to win more eyeballs. But I didn’t, and I won’t. I have come to appreciate far more the quality of interaction that comes from this particular form of social media than the quantity. For me, blogging is an enjoyable, part-time hobby to channel some creative expression. Not a mad, panicked race to accumulate page views. And, as a bonus, it has also become a surprisingly effective vehicle for making real connections with people.

I am thankful for every friend I’ve met through blogging, every soul who leaves a small imprint of their spirit here in the form of a comment, every idea that has been shared. I’m proud of those 93 page views per day, and I’m so glad that someone – anyone – is actually taking the time to read my strange ramblings on the intersection of business, work, and spritual life. I hope it shapes and influences you in some small way, just as the writing of my blogger friends has an impact on me.

WordPress, the maker of this blog, has done a pretty cool end-of-year summary review thing for all of it’s bloggers. I don’t know how many people are actually willing to share their stats, but I figured someone needed to go first. What’s the big deal? Here it is.

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The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

Healthy blog!

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

About 3 million people visit the Taj Mahal every year. This blog was viewed about 34,000 times in 2010. If it were the Taj Mahal, it would take about 4 days for that many people to see it.

In 2010, there were 98 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 246 posts. There were 131 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 39mb. That’s about 3 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was August 20th with 1,463 views. The most popular post that day was Turning Fifty: Shaken, Not Stirred .

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were wordpress.com, Google Reader, twitter.com, highcallingblogs.com, and mail.yahoo.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for bradley j. moore, bradley j moore, shrinking the camel, feeling stupid, and feeling stupid at work.