I like taking a day near the start of the month to look over what WordPress tells me was popular around here. It’s usually a nice, low-key way to fill the content hole with a lot of numbers followed by a heap of other numbers, some of them including decimal points. It’s great.
In September there were 2,644 page views around here. They came from 1,436 unique visitors, who left a total of 174 likes and 50 comments. In October there were 3,070 page views and I do so like getting above a big round number like that. 1,681 unique visitors, who left 173 likes and 67 comments. And for November?
I was surprised to have a very slight increase in page views, to 3,077. My mathematics blog had a drop in readers in November and I expect the two blogs to stay synchronized. (More accurately the mathematics blog had an extra readership boost in October.) The number of unique visitors rose more than slightly, to 1,681, more than I’ve had since this five-month streak in early 2018. Likes fell to 150, the first time in seven months that they’ve been outside the 165-to-180 range. The number of comments rose to 88, the fifth month of increase in a row and the greatest number since February 2018.
As in October, all the most popular stuff here was comic strip updates. Also as in October, the most popular pieces weren’t actually published in this past month. At the top were:
- Is the comic strip Henry ending? Is the comic strip Hazel ending?
- What’s Going On In Judge Parker? Who’s Now Dead In Judge Parker? June – September 2018
- What The Heck Happened To Nancy and Why Does It Look Weird?
- What’s Going On In Gasoline Alley? And What Happened To Jim Scancarelli?
- What’s Going On In Judge Parker? Is Something Happening In Apartment 3-G Suddenly? March – June 2018
The most popular thing actually published in November was I Don’t Know Who’s Officially Writing Spider-Man Now. It is Roy Thomas, although Comics Kingdom doesn’t have his credit on the strip yet. They just list Stan Lee. My most popular long-form piece was In Which I Am Extremely Helpful Making Food For Thanksgiving, suggesting there might be some interest in me writing pieces that make me out as incompetent but well-intentioned. I had expected that to be well-received. Intellectual-amiable-fumbling in that Robert Benchley mode plays to my strengths. The most popular Statistics Saturday post was Questions Raised By Learning Kings Dominion Amusement Park Had A Wayne’s-World-Theme Area. There’s not really any reason that had to be a Statistics Saturday format, truth be told.
Here’s the roster of the story strips I hope to explain What’s Going On In for the coming month. Subject, as ever, to fast-breaking news updates.
- Alley Oop (week of the 9th of December)
- The Phantom (weekdays) (week of the 16th of December)
- Dick Tracy (week of the 23rd of December)
- Gasoline Alley (week of the 30th of December)
- Mark Trail (week of the 6th of January)
And it won’t matter for December. But Alley Oop is scheduled to go into new strips the 7th of January. Alison Sayers is to write and Jonathan Lemon to draw. And apparently the Sunday strips are to be about “Li’l Oop,” a preteen version of Alley Oop. I have no idea if that’s going to be a separate storyline or just standalone gags.
The country count: there were 60 countries sending me readers in September. 69 in October. For November there were 66 countries, if you count “European Union” as a single country. The exact roster:
| Country | Readers |
|---|---|
| United States | 2,352 |
| India | 113 |
| Canada | 107 |
| Australia | 66 |
| United Kingdom | 53 |
| Italy | 44 |
| Brazil | 31 |
| Germany | 27 |
| Philippines | 22 |
| Denmark | 20 |
| Hong Kong SAR China | 18 |
| France | 16 |
| Spain | 14 |
| Finland | 11 |
| Netherlands | 11 |
| South Africa | 11 |
| Peru | 10 |
| Sweden | 10 |
| Turkey | 9 |
| Chile | 8 |
| Mexico | 7 |
| Russia | 7 |
| European Union | 6 |
| Japan | 6 |
| Poland | 6 |
| South Korea | 6 |
| Malaysia | 5 |
| Norway | 5 |
| Romania | 4 |
| Serbia | 4 |
| Thailand | 4 |
| Vietnam | 4 |
| Belgium | 3 |
| El Salvador | 3 |
| Hungary | 3 |
| Jamaica | 3 |
| Nepal | 3 |
| Oman | 3 |
| Portugal | 3 |
| Venezuela | 3 |
| Austria | 2 |
| Costa Rica | 2 |
| Croatia | 2 |
| Czech Republic | 2 |
| Indonesia | 2 |
| New Zealand | 2 |
| Nigeria | 2 |
| Singapore | 2 |
| Switzerland | 2 |
| Ukraine | 2 |
| Bangladesh | 1 (**) |
| Colombia | 1 |
| Egypt | 1 |
| Georgia | 1 |
| Guyana | 1 |
| Honduras | 1 |
| Ireland | 1 |
| Malawi | 1 |
| Maldives | 1 (*) |
| Mongolia | 1 |
| Morocco | 1 |
| Panama | 1 |
| Papua New Guinea | 1 |
| Qatar | 1 |
| Saudi Arabia | 1 |
| Sri Lanka | 1 |
There were 16 single-reader countries in September, 17 in October, and in November, 16. I guess I have my level, then. Maldives have been a single-reader country two months running now. Bangladesh, three months.
According to Insights, for the end of November I had published 334 posts and a total of 212,977 words this year. That’s an average of 638 words per piece, up from an average of 634 from the start of November. It’s also by the way a total of 17,378 words over the 30 posts. So I’m doing really well at getting my Monday-Wednesday-Friday posts down to short, snappy pieces.
As of the end of November I’m averaging 2.5 comments per post, up from 2.4 at the start of November and 2.3 at the start of October. And an average of 6.0 likes per post, down from 6.1 at the start of November and October. December opened with my having 105,666 page views total, from 58,125 unique visitors. And 2,129 total posts, by the way.
I’m glad if you choose to follow Another Blog, Meanwhile. You can add it to your WordPress reader with the button that says you can add this to your WordPress reader. If you prefer an RSS reader, you can add my articles from this link. And I’m also @Nebusj on Twitter. Finally I’d like to thank everyone for my theme song and great music cues. See you next month.
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