The Faithful Dissident recently had a post commemorating her 1st anniversary as a blogger. Since I let my 1st anniversary pass without fanfare (in January), I decided to do a sort of anniversary when I reached my 100th post.
In reviewing my blog, I am relying on Google Analytics. For any bloggers out there who want to know who/where and what visitors are looking at your site, this is a free service (you just need a free gmail account. Click here for more info.) I installed the code on June 15th of last year, and have been tracking things since then, so this would be my 10 month anniversary of being able to track statistics. Unfortunately, I did not install the code at the beginning, so my first 6 months of stats are missing.
My Worst Post
While most people would start with the good, I’ll start with the bad and talk about my worst post. Apparently, my worst post was Looking at Mitt on Super Tuesday, which I did on Feb 2 last year. Not a single person has clicked on that post since June 15, and it received no comments. Nobody apparently cares that I predicted a loss for Mitt to McCain, and nobody bothered to check out the spreadsheet to see that I was pretty close to predicting the delegate count. I guess I’ll take that as a lesson that people don’t come here for my political analysis, (though I did get a mention on Mormon Times on my post about Obama on MLK Day.)
My Top Ten Most Viewed
I have been consistently surprised that my post what’s the difference between arabs and persians is consistently one of the most viewed, and my top post. Even over the last 30 days, it is my second highest post, and has been my most viewed post in 2 different months. On the other hand, it hasn’t received as many comments as one would expect from a Most Viewed Post.
Another funny thing I’ve noticed is that with Easter here, my post from last year on Why don’t mormons celebrate Easter? has had a huge surge to #2, and is my top post this month (1 year later!) When I checked last week, it wasn’t even in my top ten, so I expect that to fall back out of the top 10 soon.
Here’s my overall top ten.
1. whats the difference between arabs persians
2. why don’t mormons celebrate easter
3. early christian heresies gnosticism
4. was priesthood ban inspired
5. using fear pride and greed to pay tithing
7. gnosticism dead sea scrolls nag hammadi library
9. eastern orthodoxy theosis/deification
It’s also interesting to me to see my top posts each month. One would think that current posts would receive the most hits, but that’s not always the case. I also found that how one cuts up the month makes a big difference. I compared the months from the 1st day to the last day, with from the 15th to the 14th (since I installed Google Analytics on the 15th of the month, April and June would be short-changed by the first criteria.) Results were surprisingly different.
| 1st to Last day | |
| June 2008 | how does marcionism relate to the apostasy |
| July 2008 | science and religion are they always opposing |
| August 2008 | gods in embroyo my first sunstone |
| September 2008 | early christian heresies gnosticism |
| October 2008 | was priesthood ban inspired |
| November 2008 | what are you thankful for? |
| December 2008 | whats the difference between arabs persians |
| January 2009 | be ye therefore perfect what does it really mean |
| February 2009 | after death experience the message |
| March 2009 | early black mormons |
| April 2009 | why dont mormons celebrate easter |
| 15th to 14th | |
| June 2008 | |
| July 2008 | shaken faith syndrome |
| August 2008 | rock n roll in the conference center |
| September 2008 | joshuas unholy war |
| October 2008 | was priesthood ban inspired |
| November 2008 | using fear pride and greed to pay tithing |
| December 2008 | whats the difference between arabs persians |
| January 2009 | be ye therefore perfect what does it really mean |
| February 2009 | whats the difference between arabs persians |
| March 2009 | after death experience the message |
| April 2009 | why dont mormons celebrate easter |
My Favorite Posts
1. was priesthood ban inspired
2. gods in embroyo my first sunstone
4. a radically different book of mormon geography theory
Most Commented Posts
Comments don’t always indicate popularity with viewers, but the interactions with others is always fun and welcome. My new post on a radically different book of mormon geography theory has been rising quickly and is already in my top 5 in just a week!
1. was priesthood ban inspired – 76 comments
2. be ye therefore perfect what does it really mean – 67 comments
3. joshuas unholy war – 57 comments
4. after death experience the message – 44 comments
5. a radically different book of mormon geography theory – 38 comments
My Favorite Blogs
I have them listed to the side, but I most frequently visit the following:
So, did I miss anything you liked?
Mormon Heretic 
Congratulations on 100 posts, MH! Looking forward to hundreds more! 🙂
Last year at this time, I was still very new to blogging and your post about why Mormons don’t celebrate Easter was one that stuck in my mind, even though I couldn’t remember who wrote it. As time went on, your blog has remained one of my favourites, so it was interesting to be reminded that you were the author of that post.
Your priesthood ban post is still my favourite and it’s one that I still refer to from time to time. Great post, excellent research, and very interesting discussion! I also enjoyed the post Joshua’s Unholy War, which explored a story in the scriptures that is difficult for most of us to reconcile.
In more recent times, I remember a post from just a few months ago where you raised some provocative questions about the nature of Christ, based on some of his comments in the scriptures. I enjoyed the discussion that followed on that one. Also, your recent post where we discussed euthanasia was really interesting.
Congratulations, MH. I am thrilled to be mentioned as one of the blogs you read. And I love that you describe me as one of the “other heretics!” One of my favorite posts of yours was the one on Rachel and Leah.
Congrats on reaching 100 posts! You are a b’nacle staple, MH!
Thanks for the kind words all!
FD, I must say that I always love to hear your point of view regarding gay issues, as well as your perspective on other churches. You always get me thinking.
BiV, I really love your church history topics. The Charles Anthon series was awesome, and I loved the post about Jesse Gause, as well as the mine in Utah.
Hawkgrrrl, your posts on MM are always thought-provoking, and I would gladly add you to my “heretic” list for your nipples post, as well as other topics. Do you have a blog of your own?
I forgot to mention one other odd stat of mine. Back on Sept 25, I had the most page visits (174). When I drilled down to find out who was visiting my site that day, I discovered someone must have posted a link on an ex-mormon website, linking to my post on Gnosticism. I have very mixed feelings about that, though my Gnostic posts have consistently been in my Top 10 visited.
But the good news is that April has had two big spikes in visitors, and I just had 2 days surpass my previous high–April 10 (177) and April 12 (223). On both days, it seems that people primarily used Google to search to find out if Mormons celebrate Easter. I still can’t believe that my post from last year is my top post for this month (by quite a distance.)
MH, congratulations! You consistently have high quality, and you frequent high quality blogs. *grin*
Out of curiosity, I checked my blog to see how many posts I have published. I owe you a thanks for making me do that, since tomorrow (Friday, the 17th) will be . . . . . . . . . . . . .
#300.
I knew I had written a bunch, but I didn’t realize it was that many.
Oh, and my highest comment posts were on presiding (two of them), polygamy and racism. Too bad I don’t write about incredibly controversial topics regularly. *bigger grin*
Congrats, MH! I have enjoyed remembering some of your past posts. I admire the work and thought you put into your articles.