Looking at Blog Stats (NSFW, heh)

Poking into the Google Stats is always an interesting experience. For one thing, I am usually always surprised at what's actually getting the most hits. The top five articles in the last 30 days on RoC include, in order, with hits over 30 days:

My review of Return of the Living Dead (177)

Five Things I'm Not Going to Miss About Pathfinder (173)

An Open Letter to One Book Shelf (154)

Building Fantasy Worlds in Five Easy Steps (142)

Chivalry & Sorcery 4th Edition Rules are Out (93)

(not going to feed the beast by linking, use the search button if you want....)

Why these five? Damned if I know....my diatribe about Pathfinder has been fairly popular, which I find a bit odd. I've noticed that a little vitriol or negativity can go a long way with blog hits, although "doing it right" is hard....for me at least doing it right is a lesson in how to make it entertaining without coming off like a crazed loon or half-mad old geezer sitting on his lawn, as many other blogs end up doing. Not easy, I assure you.

Why the review of the Return of the Living Dead? No clue at all unless someone, somewhere, is hunting for Linnea Quigley pics. It does, after all, have a NSFW designation in the title. Again, seems like those four letters make great click bait. Pity I'm ad-free!

Open Letter to One Book Shelf....I suppose I'm glad it gets some attention. It was linked in another more popular blog than mine (Tobold's Blog) so probably why it gets a higher number of hits.

Building Fantasy Worlds in Five Easy Steps....a fun little "roll a world" generator I posted like ages ago, ignored for so long, but suddenly collecting 142 hits in the last four weeks. Did someone link to it somewhere?

C&S.....who knew it was still popular enough to roll in some hits?

I remain, as always, both amused and perplexed at what gets the most hits on this site. As always I write what I want, but with the caveat that I try to make it something other people will want to read as well. The blog has been a fantastic method of engaging in "displinary writing," though I admit the ultimate goal of turning that learned process of disciplinary writing into something that will eventually field actual novels is still a bit behind the curve. Behind the scenes I am writing plenty of game content...and much of it ends up on the blog, but that's not honestly what gets the most hits.

Well, if I ever go for an ad-based blog model you'll know it when I start listing daily articles with the "Top Ten Horror Movies Linnea Quigley is nude in!!! (NSFW)" every day....

Chirak's Top Ten Posts

Yesterday's post on PDF publishing generated a startling number of hits (285 as of Friday afternoon) which is cool and interesting....I should write more on this subject, as I have much to say/discuss and people are clearly interested.

In noticing this I thought, "What are the other posts that have garnered a lot of traffic?" since it's been a while since I last looked. As usual the results are surprising, with some new additions:

#10 The Cabin in the Woods Review joins the list with 665 page views.

#9 Much to my surprise, The Lost Tribes Review gets #9 with 767 hits.

#8 The Resident Evil 6 Leon Kennedy Campaign Review gets #8 with 922 hits. I'm especially happy about this as I really had fun writing that review, and the game was so much terribad fun that it made doing the review funny and cathartic all at once. Only REAL RE fans can claim to have experienced this game and bathed in the sort of gamer love that one can only get from a disturbed codependent relationship!

#7 The U.S. Airforce Aircraft Identification post got 923 hits. My throwaway "I'm bored what can I find on the interwebz today" post. LOL

#6 My John Carter Rant was next, with 955 hits. I mean....that was a really fun movie, how could it have bombed so badly? Sigh.

#5 The Realistic Fantasy/SF Role Model of the Week featuring Spartan Catherine-B320 remains strong with 1031 posts. She is still my favorite non-John 117 character in Halo. Tough chick.

#4 Orcs in Warlords of Lingusia for Pathfinder holds on with 1180 hits. Interesting....orc love remains high.

#3 is Sabiri Tattoos with 1329 hits. I can appreciate this. Sabiri tats are awesome.

#2 is still the Halloween Countdown Finale from 2011 with 1335 hits

#1 Remains "The Death Gods" with 2191 views. Wow....I may have to explore the death gods of the Lingusian pantheon more. Lots of unpublished material on them that I should clean up and make presentable some day.


Really interesting is what's been hit in the last month. Right now the Top 5 for the last month are:

#5. James Cash, the Explosive Rocketman has garnered 75 hits. Amazing Adventures love! A good thing.

#4. The Aliens: Colonial Marines review has gotten 119 hits. I still stand by what I said; I liked the single player campaign, and ran into no bugs. The multiplayer however continues to elude me, as I can't even get the F***er to log me into a game. So from a MP standpoint its pure crap.

#3. The Leon Kennedy Campaign Review for Resident Evil 6 garnered 150 posts in this month alone, even though it came out back in November. At least people who read my A:CM review will know I am not a tasteless junkie of cheap throwaway titles if they read this one....though one could be forgiven for thinking I am a virtual world masochist for playing both games through.

#2. Deathwatch: The Ark of Lost Souls in which I mention the first Warhammer 40K RPG product to be released that might interest me generated 175 posts, so I feel sorta bad that this is not something I will likely be able to capitalize on, being otherwise very, very unfamiliar with the WH40K universe.

#1. The Cost of PDF Publishing yesterday, already at 285 posts as of writing. Wow. I feel like I should try to write some more serious articles on the industry as a result of this. I usually treat the blog as a playground with occasional articles of a ranty or informative nature....but ultimately always as a "whatever I feel like" sort of thing. However, there are most certainly a wide range of topics, especially publishing, which would be relevant to the focus of this blog and on which I have more than a few opinions, advice or general data to share. I'll need to think a bit about what I can bring to the table going forward that people will find most enjoyable.

I also need to edit my posts better. I have a bad habit (these days) of redundant word usage  and it drives me nuts when I spot it (always after the fact). I can only blame old age, mental fatigue, and my child driving me to distraction as reasons for such sloppiness.

Anyway, thanks everyone for perusing the blog, here's to the next couple of years' growth as a blogger!

Ninja Jesus!