When I received Christian’s email about the quarterly stats, as usual there were smileys and wine everywhere. I always thought that Germans were very staid and unemotional and did not have a rollicking good time ever, but I’ve changed my opinion since I met C. 🙂 In addition to loving fun he has done a masterful job again in putting together the stats for this quarter.
Christian changed the way that the hits were recorded when we moved into the new site about 6 weeks ago by modifying some elements, including the carousels which apparently were a major issue, to more accurately reflect the number of hits (he explained this complicated process to me in detail but it’s all Greek to me). lol. These combined changes show a decrease in the number of hits in December on the chart, but actually this is not a reduction just a more accurate way of reporting. On the other side of the equation visitors show a significant increase, so clearly this is not a reduction in real terms.
In terms of details, the hits in the last quarter went from 46,461,425 to 65,232,751 an increase of 18,771,326. The visitors went from 804,065 and topped the one million mark at 1,151,652 – an increase of 347,587 in this quarter alone. You guys really rock and I appreciate every single one of you for being so loyal. You obviously also love the content because the number of pages went from 5,481,615 to 8,790,897 an increase of 3,309,282 pages that you looked at.
While statistics are fun and show performance trends, I am more interested in the people who drop by the site and the fact that you love what we do as well as those who do the work – the guest reviewers. This is definitely a joint effort and I have to thank Aunt Lynn, Jenre and Kassa have been here the longest as well as those guest reviewers who joined us later such as Val, Tj, Lily, John, Buda, Victor, Feliz, Stacey, Nathan and last, Cole who came on board in December. They are all wonderful contributors. Of course you and I love Tam who writes those fun posts that make you spill your coffee on your keyboards. All I can say is, I don’t want to know where she gets her ideas and material and I don’t want to be in her twisted brain. 🙂 Christian our Webmaster keeps everything together and I know that at times he wishes I would lose his email, but honey that’s the price you pay for being so great at your job. 😉 Whenever Christian is not around Lynn, our other technical expert who did such an incredible job on the design of the new website, is my other “go to” person and she rocks big balls in a small body.
To all our guest bloggers, those authors who are persuaded to write blog posts by gifts of chocolate and other unmentionables, 🙂 thank you for making this site a great place for your fans to visit and talk to you. Also, I appreciate your comments on my Friday rants posts.
Thank you to Josh Lanyon and Ethan Day who have written numerous posts and who will be joining us this year in their new capacity. The welcome mat is definitely out but please don’t crush the rose petals with those big boots on your way in – they cost a lot of money. 🙂 We appreciate all the hard work that will be going in to your posts and look forward to you being part of our ‘family’.
All of the guest reviewers do an incredible job with their reviews and I know you appreciate them. I just wish you would comment more, but that’s another post.
Enclosed below is the detailed chart for those of you who love numbers as much as Val does, and I must say I think it’s quite pretty. If you want to enlarge the chart just click on it.
We now have visitors who access the site from 169 countries, a few I have never heard of, and I hope that bloggers from some of these new countries will be brave enough to comment occasionally so that we can get to know them.
Thanks again guys for all your support – we do this for you and we appreciate your visits and comments.
Wow! Excellent stats. I am proud to say that I am of those 1701 loyal visitors 🙂
Hey Ingrid
Thank you for being a loyal visitor. You’re here every day to cheer us on and that’s gratifying..
Even with Christian’s new tallying method – hopefully it’s nothing like your Canadian math Wave 😉 – 18 million hits and 800,000 visitors is very impressive. Seeing how many people are actually reading what we all put out there is very gratifying. Thanks for the numbers Christian. Congratulations Wave, and good work everyone!
Hey Tj
There you go with my Canadian math again. lol. Actually 18.7 million hits is nothing to sneeze at and the number of visitors is 1.15 million . 800,000 was the number at the end of the last quarter. C. doesn’t let me screw up his numbers. 🙂 You’re right – the number of bloggers who read the posts is very gratifying and everyone should take a bow.
Oops, sorry Wave! 🙂 I guess my US math isn’t much better than your Canadian! 1.15 million visitors is just mind boggling! I really can’t think about that many people reading the stuff that I write or I’d get serious performance anxiety. And that’s just not a good thing for a guy. 😉
Tj
Did you say performance anxiety? None of the guys in books have that. lol
Your math is just as bad as mine Teej so don’t ever criticize me again. 🙂
Yay, Canada’s number 3!!! That doesn’t sound very impressive does it? Sigh. Maybe we can beat the UK for the gold medal next quarter. Us Canadians have to start recruiting more to the dark side.
As for my twisted brain, I give y’all credit for contributing to it in some small way. I was young and innocent two years ago and a bit and then poof, I found you and it’s been all down hill from there. 🙂 Not that I’m complaining, it’s been a blast for sure.
Tam
Thank you for all your hard work. Canada at No. 3 is pretty impressive when you consider our population is about one tenth that of the US and half of the United Kingdom, so we’re doing fine. If anyone can recruit others to the dark side you only have to look at yourself.
Thanks for working so hard to turn our brains to mush Tam. 🙂
Very impressive stats, Wave. :)Congratulations on your success. I’m one of the faithful followers; my reading experiences have been greatly improved since I discovered this site!
Patty
Thank you for those nice words. We ()the guest reveiwers and I) do this for the readers so that makes it all worthwhile.
Wave, I’ve been reading Taking You Home, your DIK from last week. Love, love, love, LOVE it. You are so right about this being a special book. I really meant it when I said that I look forward to reading the reviews.
On the pie chart, when you refer to return visitors, are those visitors who comment?
I love your icon, Patty! He looks like a mastiff? I hear they’re great dogs. 🙂
Hi, Val. That sad face belongs to a bull mastiff. They’re about 100 pounds less dog than a regular mastiff, but still weigh in at about 125- 140 pounds at maturity. We live with 2 big boys and yes, they are wonderful dogs to live with. Totally adoring and very mellow; on the couch potato end of the activity scale. 🙂
Whoa, so a regular mastiff is more than 200 pounds? That’s amazing. I bet yours (the bull mastiffs) are fun to live with. I’ve heard that they can be very mellow. Also that they like to horde food and hide it around the house! 😀
Christian is an exception.We ARE very staid and unemotional. 😀
BTW – nice stats!
Hi Sims
Christian claims that all Germans are not like they are pictured and I ahve to take his word becasue he can REALLY let his hair down. lol.
The stats are really gratifying and we all love them.
Numbers make my brain hurt, but these sure are nice 🙂 Thanks again to all who make this site possible, I am forever thankful for having discovered so many wonderful authors and stories after becoming a regular here. And the bonhomie shown by everyone on the site has been great too. As I have many German friends and a whole branch of Canadian relatives, I will refrain from sharing any witticisms concerning either 😉
Hi Dianne
I hate numbers even though I have to work with them.
I’m really pleased that the benefits of discovering the authors and stories outweigh the dent in your pocketbook. 🙂 As for those hockey mad Canadians of which I’m definitely not one (I prefer baseball), and staid Germans – you can’t judge them by the way they are portrayed, which is a good thing.
Thank you for supporting the site.
I’m pretty new to the site, but I love what you guys are doing here. I find the reviews are right on the money and I know what I want to read without having to buy first. Those stats are pretty darned impressive. Thanks for all the hard work.
Hi Marilyn
Welcome. We love to welcome newbies to the site and hope to trap them into staying by giving them what they want and need. lol
the guest reviewers and Christian deserve the praise – they work darned hard.
zowie! I had no idea we were such a big deal. I mean, I know I love the site and always enjoy having something up on it, but jeeper, this is fantastic.
Thanks, Wave, and everyone.
Victor
Hi Victor
Thank YOU for all your contributions – blog posts as well as reviews. You give us a lot of respectability and relevance, so take a bow. 🙂
Wave and Christian, these are phenomenal numbers!
You’re right, Wave, that the commenting on posts just isn’t there (I want say “anymore” because it seems like we got more comments in the past, but I’m not sure about that). In fact, on many reviews, the views aren’t even there. However, getting these quarterly reports on the overall site progress makes it all worthwhile. 🙂
The pie chart is fascinating to see the breakdown of repeat visitors, and the line graph is outrageously gratifying! It looks like that total hits per month line is increasing exponentially! 😀
Hi Val
I’m writing a post on Friday (if I get it finished) about commenting on posts. I have noticed a trend because some reviews get outrageous numbers and others don’t and I have figured out why (other than a general state of ennui among the bloggers). However I am pleased with the huge increase in pages read and the number of visitors.
Thank you very much to all of you, it´s always a pleasure to visit this site *deep bow* I´m sure the numbers will keep increasing 🙂
Hi Helena
thank you for the compliment which I accept on everyone’s behalf. We work very hard and it’s great to be appreciated. 🙂
I’m one of the “loyal visitors” and am definitely in the 25 + visits category. Does that make me sad and pathetic? 😉 I *do* try to check in every day.
I wonder why the U.S. makes up such a *huge* percentage of the vistors. I mean, besides the size of the country in square miles and the gazillion people it supports vs. the physically smaller countries. I’m assuming that’s the main answer but can’t be the only one. Is it?
As I’m sure other readers have, I have my “favorite” reviewers. Which for me means that they seem to enjoy the same types of books that I do and I can “trust” them.
Thanks so much for the wonderful site, Wave, and all the work you and the others put into it!!! 😀
Sherry
We love visitors like you. No you’re neither sad nor pathetic. I hope it means that you love the content.
The US readers love M/M that’s all. 🙂 Brits and Canadians do as well but compared to your population, ours is much smaller so the percentage seems about right. Also, most of the writers are American too and it’s like to like.
Thank you for being such a loyal visitor Sherry.
“Unmentionables?”
Why did my mind immediately go to sex toys?
🙂
Because you’re a bad girl, that’s why. lol.