Happy 2012 everybody! 2011 has been quite a year, but rather than recap the events of the year, which I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of other sites do countless times over, I’m just going to throw some statistics about my site this year out at you. Why? Well, mostly because I’m a narcissistic bastard who thinks that other people care about how many visitors my site had in 2011. If you don’t care, I’d recommend you leave this post right now. If you do, then prepare yourself for some numbers!
I only started tracking my site on Google Analytics on February 8, so these numbers may be missing a few visitors. Regardless, they’re still interesting. First, let’s start off with the big number: in 2011, Historically Irrelevant had 11,296 unique visitors; that is, individual people who visited the site at least once. That’s a ridiculously high number beyond my wildest dreams. So thanks to everybody who visited! It’s crazy to think that over 11,000 people read at least one of my articles.
Of those 11,296 visitors, 9,088 of them were from the United States. The other 2,208 people came from 107 different countries from every continent except Antarctica. The top 10, from most visitors to least, comprised of:
- United States of America
- Canada
- United Kingdom
- Australia
- Germany
- Netherlands
- New Zealand
- Republic of Ireland
- Sweden
- Mexico
Quite a list, eh? I’m honored to have visitors from around the world, and hope they keep coming back.
In terms of browser, 5,349 (around 44%) of all visitors used Google Chrome as their browser of choice. I, too, use Chrome (in fact, I’m typing this article in Chrome) and would recommend it above any other browser. Firefox came in second with 31% of all users using it. Internet Explorer and Safari came in third and fourth respectively, with each about 9% of visitors.
For operating system, it was no surprise when Microsoft Windows was used by 66% (8,104) of all users, due to its dominance of the marketplace. It was surprising, however, that it only controlled 66% of the market, at least in terms of visitors to my site. OS X, Apple’s baby, had 24% (2,911) of visitors to the site. In third place, rather than Linux, came the iPad with 4% (431) and Linux in fourth with 3% (374). Rounding out the top five was the iPhone with 2% (219). Mobile devices, specifically Apple products, are slowly but surely chipping away the dominance of desktop based OSes.
With the profile of each individual visitor established, it’s time to see where those visitors are coming from. The top place where people found my site from was Reddit, which netted me 5,229 visitors (46% of all visitors). So, thank you Redditors for visiting my site! In second place comes another discovery site, StumbleUpon, with 2,384 (21%) visitors. Search results from Google came in third place, with 1,231 (11%) visitors. Finally, in fourth and fifth place are the social networking sites that I’ve shared many a link to this site on. Facebook comes in fourth with 763 (7%) visitors. So to all those reading this via Facebook, thanks! In fifth comes Twitter, with 279 (3%) visitors. Again, I thank all my Twitter followers for visiting! In all, 93 different web sites linked to my site, but netted me a lot less followers than these big five. Thanks to all who deemed my site worthy enough of linking to!
We’ve got where these visitors are coming from, where they’re located in the world, and what they’re using to visit my site. Now, let’s see what they’re actually looking at! The top two articles are neck and neck, with the most visited only beating out its opponent by 16 visitors. In first place comes What our legal drugs tell us about our society with 3,886 pageviews, accounting for 27% of all pageviews to the site. The next post narrowly lost the lead with 3,850 pageviews, my post about The street vendor who changed the world also accounted for 27% of pageviews. The next post drops off substantially, for it doesn’t even break the one thousand mark in terms of pageviews. In third place comes The history of contractions with 746 (5%) views. Fourth place was secured by my post about The beautiful game, and why it doesn’t need to be fixed with 530 (4%) views. Rounding out the top five is my post about Why I cried at the end of Bastion, and why I’m not afraid to admit it with 504 (4%) views. Overall, a fairly varied top five most viewed articles.
A great year all around for Historically Irrelevant, one which I’d like to thank you for being a part of. This year, I hope to have some more great articles and intriguing ideas for you to read about, and hope that you’ll join me. Thanks for making 2011 a fantastic year, and help me make 2012 even better!
