Tagged: blog stats
The Best and Worst of July 2014
Yep, this is another Best and Worst of… installment that’s a little late but it’s better late than never. Especially considering all of the tech problems I’ve had recently (and am still having). My keyboard recently died on my desktop so now I have to use a laptop that is way too small for my long fingers. Oh well, things could be worse.
Sadly on the statistics front, July just couldn’t compete with the previous four record-breaking months. Now that Game of Thrones is done for another several months and school is out (so I don’t get hits on my Hunger Games articles as much) I expected my views to go down and I wasn’t surprised when I only received 6,344 page views with 4,568 unique views. Still, that’s much better than last July, which clocked in at 3,958 total page views. My site is continuing to grow in popularity so I can hardly complain about how tough I have it.
Well, what were the best articles this month?
1. Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal
2. How to Read 100 Pages in an Hour
3. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
4. Discussion: Who are Book Reviews For?
5. Discussion: Your School Reading Experiences
As with the previous four months, my Game of Thrones article gave me over half of the views I received and the other articles preceding it were far behind by comparison (3000+ hits compared to 100). My discussions did better than they usually do, mainly because I haven’t really posted discussions for a while since my tech problems started. Speaking of which, I still have to reply to all of those awesome comments!
So what were the worst articles in July?
1. The Squire, His Knight, and His Lady by Gerald Morris
2. Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare
4. The Fire Within by Chris d’Lacey
5. The Secret War by Matt Myklusch
All of these are reviews this month, which is unusual, but at the same time it’s not all that concerning. They’re all books that have been out for a while so of course they’re not going to get the same amount of hits as newer books that are being talked about all over the internet. I don’t see any repeat offenders so I usually don’t get too worried about which reviews appear on the worst list.
Well, that’s how my July went: lower stats and tons of tech problems but still not too bad. Work is busy, which is good, but at the same time I look back on the slow days of winter with longing because while I’m ringing up customers constantly I’m not getting any cleaning or estimating done. Still, I can’t complain. How was your July?
The Best and Worst of June 2014
I can’t believe it’s July 6th already, but then again when you have tech problems time seems to fly. So yes, it’s a little late for my Best and Worst of article but I guess it’s better late than never. Other than my ridiculous tech problems June was actually pretty good. Work is picking up as the tourists flow into town and the weather is finally, finally starting to smarten up. Luckily I’m not in the part of Saskatchewan that’s flooded or has experienced tornadoes.
Anyway, here are the best five articles of June 2014:
1. Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal
2. How to Read 100 Pages in an Hour
3. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
4. Your Open Book Promotion Thread
5. I’ve Been Invaded by Gremlins!
For the fourth month in a row, I have broken my monthly stats record! Instead of the 13,316 views of May, in June I received 14,198 views. As with the previous months, I have the TV show Game of Thrones to thank for that as my rebuttal article received 8,581 views or about 60% of my total traffic for that month. I have the hugely popular season 4 finale to thank for that, I think.
So what were the worst articles in this record-breaking month?
1. Graphic Novel Review: Batgirl Volume II: Knightfall Descends by Gail Simone
2. Discussion: Romance in YA Novels
4. I am More Than Just a Chronic Pain Statistic
5. The Best and Worst of April 2014
Meh, none of these are surprising or worrying. The only real trend I’ve noticed among the five worst articles is that Scott Westerfeld’s books seem to pop up a lot. It’s not because he’s not a popular author but maybe because I actually liked the books. I seem to get a lot more traffic from reviews where I didn’t like the book.
So how was your June?
The Best and Worst of April 2014
Remember how, back in my January installment of this series I said it would be along time before I broke my monthly views record of 8,228? I broke that record last month in March and then I thought to myself, “Well there’s no way I’m going to break the record again so soon.” Enter April 2014, my best month ever. In April I broke both my daily stats record and my monthly views record. The previous daily record was 861, the new record is 918 views on April 6. My previous monthly record was 8,941 views and my new record is 11,905 views. I was also able to welcome 54 new followers to my blog for a total of 842 followers. Now that is a good month to make up for the stress and general awfulness of my personal life right now.
Now without further ado let’s look at my top 5 articles:
1. Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal
2. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
3. How to Read 100 Pages in an Hour
4. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
5. How Not to Criticize a Book Reviewer
Thanks to Game of Thrones Season 4 premiering on television my statistics on my Game of Thrones article, which have always been high, skyrocketed. Just to give you an idea of how crazy it was I have to say that of the 11,905 views I received this month, 6,895 of them were on my rebuttal article alone (that’s 58%!). The second best article by comparison only received 343 views. That’s insane.
So which articles were the worst this month?
1. City of Glass by Cassandra Clare
2. The Goddess Test by Aimée Carter
3. The Mad Reviewer’s 2013 Holiday Book Buying Guide (Part Two)
4. Writing the Popular Novel by Loren D. Estleman
5. The Oracle of Delphi Blog Tour Kick-Off and Giveaway
Meh. I think it’s pretty obvious why all of these are in the bottom 5 list this month. They’re either really old posts or posts that just aren’t relevant anymore because of things like blog tours ending and Christmas being 8 months away. As usual, my 5 worst list doesn’t bother me in the least because I know it’ll be different next month.
Well folks, that was pretty much my April: pretty bad in real life, awesome in the blogosphere. How was your April? When do you experience spikes in blogging traffic?
The Best and Worst of March 2014
It’s been one heck of a month here at The Mad Reviewer. For 30 days straight I’ve had over 200 views per day, a personal record. Which also means that I beat my previous page views per month record of 8,228 in January 2014! The final tally is 8,941 views in all of March, which shatters the previous record. Far more important to me are the 58 new followers I gained during this traffic surge. That brings the total number of followers of this blog to 788, meaning that if my traffic stays high I’ll be having a very special 1,000 follower giveaway soon!
When I looked at the 5 best posts this month I had to laugh. Before I explain, here they are:
1. Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal
2. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
3. How to Read 100 Pages in an Hour
4. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
5. Some Thoughts About Book Blogging & Statistics
I honestly had to laugh at the Game of Thrones rant article being number one because it was number one by such a large margin. Of the 8,876 views I received this month 2,962 views were from that article alone. That’s insane and hilarious! I guess it might have something to do with the fact Game of Thrones Season 4 premieres on April 6 (yay!). The other ones are pretty easy to guess why they’re #1. They’re all popular books, articles kids use for school or semi-controversial ones that garnered lots of comments.
Okay, so which articles were the worst during this record-breaking month?
1. Emperor: The Death of Kings by Conn Iggulden
2. Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side by Beth Fantaskey
3. Desired by Shadow by Cynthia Luhrs
4. Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception by Eoin Colfer
5. Lost in Shadow by Cynthia Luhrs
As usual I’m not too concerned about these reviews being the lowest ranked in terms of hits. They’re all either older books or books that aren’t exactly the most popular, even if they were excellent. Next month we’ll see different books on the bottom 5 and life will go on. It’s just interesting to see how the ‘worst’ posts rotate every month.
The Best and Worst of August 2013
It’s hard to believe August and therefore summer are over. Here in Saskatchewan we had absolutely miserable weather for 3/4s of the summer and it’s only really been nice these past two, maybe three weeks. Oh well, that’s life I guess.
Anyway, August was a bit of a hectic month for me. Life-related things took over so I didn’t get as many books reviewed as I would have liked, an author suggested I kill myself and I ran a few giveaways. August was also my second most successful month in overall statistics since I reached 6,545 views with 3,899 unique views. That’s pretty good for me, especially considering that I just reached my 500 follower milestone. I hope to hit my 500 review milestone this year as well!
But what were my most popular posts this month? Let’s take a look at the statistics:
1. The Day an Author Suggested I Kill Myself
2. Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal
3. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
4. The Ugly Side of Book Blogging: A Particularly Bad Example
5. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
None of these are a surprise, especially the first one. The reaction from the book blogging community to that particular incident was both swift and relatively severe. I know it inspired a lot of fellow bloggers to start ‘do not read’ lists, which is good considering what the author did. I’ll just leave it at that. The other posts are either old favourites, ones with good SEO **coughGOTcough** or ones to do with my little author trouble. None of the ones appearing on this list are surprising in the least.
So what were my worst posts this month, you ask? Well:
1. Just Thought You’d Like to Know
2. The Mad Reviewer is Open for Submissions
3. Mary, Bloody Mary by Carolyn Meyer
4. The Princess, The Crone and the Dung-Cart Knight by Gerald Morris
5. The Surprising Benefits of Book Reviewing
Really, there are no surprises here either. These posts are either really dated like the first one back when I celebrated my 50th review or are just unpopular books. It’s too bad since the two books on here are good, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. Seeing as no book/post is on the 5 worst list every month I won’t lose any sleep over it.
That’s how my August was. How was yours? How did you enjoy the summer? Was it warm where you live? Did you find any good books?