Sunday, January 1, 2012

2012, wow…HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I remember playing the “how old will we be when the year 2000 is here” game with my brothers when we were kids (that would be 34, 29 and 27…and I’m not telling which one was which). Back then the sound of “the year 2000,” and our future ages, was nothing short of awe inspiring. Now its 2012, wow. How exactly did that happen? Speaking of big numbers this is danger garden blog post #799, somehow I’ve managed to be on the brink of 800 posts, that’s a lot of words and photos! Since I’ve enjoyed reading posts from other bloggers with a snapshot look at their “stats” I decided to do something similar. Yes, I’m starting 2012 by looking back at 2011…

For the year 2011 I had 108,413 visitors, 63,391 of them “unique”
(I assume this is the number of people who actually opened the blog in their web browser? So folks who read it in Google Reader or via email subscription are not counted in that stat? I've always wondered about that, love to know the answer).

Visitors from 168 countries spent time here over the year, with the top ten being the U.S., Canada, the UK, Australia, France, India, Spain, Italy, Germany and Hungary. Squeaking in at #168 was Yemen with one visitor who stayed on the site for 10 minutes and looked at 3 pages.

In the U.S. the top four visiting states were the obvious ones, my state followed by the rest of the West Coast, and then Texas. After that things get less predictable…

1 Oregon: 18,269 visits
2 California: 15,964
3 Washington: 6,215
4 Texas: 5,059
5 New York: 2,215
6 Florida: 2,134
7 Ohio: 1,409
8 North Carolina: 1,260
9 Arizona: 1,206
10 Pennsylvania: 1,124

Below are the top ten most visited posts of the year. It is worth noting that most of these posts are from previous years, so this stat just reflects which posts were being read in 2011 (all post titles are links, I never am sure if people can see my links). It's also worth noting that these posts are nowhere near what I would have picked as my top ten of the year, it’s an odd group reflecting popular search terms no doubt:

1 Yucca Love
2 Resurrection Fern, Selaginella lepidophylla
3 Rock Shopping
4 Urban walls and planters
5 Walking Alberta Street
6 Hakonechloa macra 'Aureola' or Japanese Forest Grass
7 The Huntington Gardens, Part 2 The Desert Garden
8 San Francisco Botanical Gardens Part 2
9 A fence that doubles as a grape arbor
10 Bromeliads – they aren’t just super-market florist plants!

The most commented on post of the year was actually a tie between the post I did on JJ De Sousa’s amazing garden: This garden is Crazy Colorfully Cool! And one where I updated you on my birthday goings on (Including a visit from Pam @ Digging) and the fact that I’d been in Seattle for the garden bloggers fling: Happy Birthday to me! (and here's what the heck I’ve been up to…).

And finally my favorite post about my garden this year wasn’t on my blog at all, but on Digging: Foliage fantasia in Portland’s Danger Garden Pam took some great photos which managed to make me forget it was my garden I was looking at!

Happy New Year to You and thank you SO MUCH for visiting danger garden in 2011. The best part about blogging is all the wonderful people around the world that I get to interact with via your blogs or your comments here. I hope you’ll be back here often during 2012!

(the fine image at the top of this post borrowed from http://zoom-dg.com.ar/media.html)

15 comments:

  1. Loree, I will most definitely be back often in 2012. I used to play that same "How old will I be in 2000?" game with my friends. And the answer is "older than you." LOL

    I can never figure out why folks find something interesting on my blog, it's never what I think is most interesting or informative. And the search terms that bring them to my blog are sometimes a hoot!

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  2. Whenever I look at my stats some are very predictable and some are very crazy and random, but it is fun to look. I hope you have a very good new year!

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  3. My understanding is that unique visitors counts the number of individual people who visit, however many pages they may click on, while page views is how many times any page is opened by anybody. So if Alice visits, then Bob, then Alice again, you have three page views (Alice, Bob, Alice) but only two unique visitors, because Alice's second visit doesn't count. Or at least that's how it seems to work with StatCounter.

    As far as I know, people who subscribe by e-mail don't get counted in the stats; I have no idea how it works with Google Reader.

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  4. Happy New Year! Looking forward to many more posts in 2012--and possibly meeting you during a trip to Portland.

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  5. Alison, some of my favorite search terms were "coolest plants in Portland" "all plants in this garden have been embedded by gps chips" and the best "hidden man in picture"...what?

    Les, thank you Les, I wish the same for you!

    Mr S, how nice to get not only a PATSP post from you today but a blog comment too! I do understand the "unique" visitors thing...it's the other viewers "countability" that has always intrigued me. I think it was on your blog actually where I read that your traffic was down and you wondered if it was because people were reading in a subscription sort of format rather than actually opening your blog.

    Gerhard, me too! (and the pressure starts building for me to get my garden in ship shape this Spring!)

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  6. I love the report. And, although the highest number of visitors is from Oregon, it's great to see such a great following beyond the "Land of the Empire Builders".

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  7. Ha! I always forget those stats are there...must look at mine someday! Close to 800 posts...you are a machine! Happy New Year :-)

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  8. Your resurrection fern post was linked somewhere, I don't remember where, and became my bookmark for your blog.

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  9. Almost 800 posts, eh? That is a lot of words and pictures.

    I had just turned 30 when we saw the year 2000 in.

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  10. Happy New Year, Loree! May 2012 bring you peace, prosperity and (danger) plants.

    How about "How many posts shall I have in 2015?". Shall I congratulate you now or after your next post? 800! WTG!

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  11. Congratulations, Loree!!!
    And thank you for writing such great posts!
    Happy New Year!

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  12. As I count myself among your faithful readers, I thank you for your almost 800 faithful posts, Loree.

    Statistically, you've got me looking forward to each of your (approximately) 261 posts in 2012 - but no pressure! Happy 2012!

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  13. I've enjoyed your blog for about a year. I love that it features drought-tolerant plants. I was just thinking end-of-the-year stats as well. My blog is Goth Garden on FB. I'm up to about 200 posts over 4 years and last year I broke into double digits with a whole 12 subscribers! I'm sure you're pleased with your milestones in any case, but that should help put them in perspective ;)

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  14. I've enjoyed all 800 of your posts, Loree. It just takes me a little longer to get to some of them than it used to. These days I tend to read my favorite blogs in batches once or twice a week rather than every day.

    But I'm glad I caught this post only a day late. And how nice to be mentioned TWICE in it! Here's to many more Danger Garden posts in the new year!

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  15. Best wishes for a wonderful 2012!

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