By The Numbers

I have been trying to reorganize some of the content on my blog.  To do this I been looking over the stats from 2014 to help me decide if I want to move some of my features to a different spot.  For example, I decided to move my health screening series over to the sidebar and maybe get it a bit more exposure rather than being hidden away on my menu bar.

I reviewed the stats, but I did not crunch any numbers.  Luckily WordPress did it for me.  I have to admit that I was a bit surprised by the results.

According to my report:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 37,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 14 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Hooray for sold-out shows!

The busiest day of the year was January 21st with 431 views. The most popular post that day was Dog Show Bloopers.

My post on Freighter’s dog show bloopers was on the busiest day on the blog for of all of 2014?

Really?

I am used to having bloopers during my staged photo shoots, but I did not stage any for that post.  Maybe the post was popular because Freighter licked the Judge’s face?  You know that is kind of saucy and just not done at a show.

Kiss Kiss
Kiss Kiss

Freighter is entered in that show again this year.  I wonder if there will be more bloopers?

I was also pretty surprised by the posts that were the most viewed in 2014:

  1.  Bugsy’s Box Review  March 2014  33 Comments
  2. The AKC Senior Hunt Test For Retrievers Part 1  April 2011  3 Comments
  3. Dog Show Bloopers  January 2014  49 Comments
  4. A New Collar For Freighter January 2014  39 Comments
  5. Canine Health Screening-Hips January 2014  32 Comments

A post from 2011 that sparked few comments was the second most viewed post of the year and a product review was the most viewed post.  Surprise.  Surprise.

My most commented post of 2014 was Thursday Barks And Bytes–Battle Of The Bed.

I had to go look.  Sure enough the epic battle to claim the best bed received 72 comments and earned the most commented post of 2014.

Thunder Is On "His" Bed--The Dark Brown One And Storm Is On The Other Bed
Thunder Is On “His” Bed–The Dark Brown One And Storm Is On The Other Bed

The part of our year in review that dd not surprise me was the support that I received from my readers last year.  The truth is this blog would be nothing without you.  I appreciate every one of you whether you read, hit the like button, or take the time to comment.  Thank you for making it a great 2014.

I especially want to acknowledge and thank Emmadog, Jan K, Molly The Wally, Sand Spring Chesapeakes and Jodi for being the top 5 commenters for last year.  Thank you so much for your support!  If you don’t know these great bloggers, make sure you check them out.

So that is the basics of our Year In Review according to WordPress.

Random Photos Of Freighter To Remind You About Our Whistle Activity Monitor Give-Away

This Was During Our Pheasant Hunt
Not Sure What Freighter Is Doing But He Is Wearing His Whistle.
Freighter Training
Freighter Training Wearing His Whistle
Again Not Sure What He Is Doing Here
Freighter Out And About Wearing His Whistle

Find out more about the Whistle activity monitor and the give-away here and here.

Thank you all who have entered.  If you haven’t, there is still time.  The give-away is open through Sunday.

This is the Thursday Barks and Bytes Blog Hop hosted by Heart Like A Dog and 2 Brown Dawgs.

Grab The Badge
Grab The Badge

32 thoughts on “Thursday Barks And Bytes–Our Blogging Year In Review”

  1. Hi Y’all!

    That’s what my Human calls “ambition”. The only time she does anything different with my blog, no matter how much I bark at her to rearrange stuff, it only happens when something goes really wrong.

    Y’all come on by,
    Hawk aka BrownDog

    1. January I have a bit of time to make changes and update so I like to take advantage of the time before I get swamped again.

  2. Mom hates looking at stats as she is afraid of being disappointed, but we did recently have to take a look and were really shocked to see what our top posts were! Thanks for the mention. I try my best to paw around my favorite blogs and leave a pawprint.

    1. We appreciate the support. I was pretty happy with my stats considering I only post Monday through Friday and I cut way back on hops.

  3. It’s interesting to see what the stats have to say. We’ve been blogging a few years now and don’t bother reading the stats anymore, nor do we look at the dashboard bar graph. It’s just not of interest to us – what IS of interest is the comments we receive – we love meeting new people through blogging, hearing what our blogging buddies have to say and chatting back with them. We also love to see when one of our more informative posts helps people, that’s really special for us! 🙂

    1. I really didn’t look at the report until this week. When I was trying to decide to move things, my thought was if it isn’t being accessed then maybe get rid of it. The stats helped me figure out what to keep and what to move.

  4. HAHAHA! I had forgotten about Freighter licking the judges face! A friend of mine was showing her Saluki pup at Nationals. The judge bent over to check her bite, and not only did she kiss him, she wiggled her way into his arms. It was the funniest thing! She was in the ribbons that time!

    I like the layout very much. It is not too cluttered on the sidebar, and the drop down menu is very convenient.

    1. I had to go back and look. Yeah Freighter was last in his class after taking Reserve the day before. lol I am glad you like it, I do too. I am still messing with some of the widgets. I would prefer to have less, rather than more plugins. They can slow things down.

  5. What a great year! Isn’t it odd the posts that get the most traffic, mine surprised me too. I think Freighter is pooping as I love pooping pictures. Here’s to another great year of blogging!

  6. We love looking at our stats and just seeing the types of stories that get a response. I find that some of our photo posts get a big response too. Congrats on a great year!

    1. I was surprised that my photo posts were not listed in the top 5 since they generate a lot of comments.

  7. Great post…and GREAT stats!!! I posted our top posts before the new year came and I was quite surprised by which ones turned up in the top 10-15 posts too. It just goes to show, you never know. I wish you continued success in 2015! I will be here to read as many posts as I can! Hugs to the Brown Dawgs!
    Gina and Oz

  8. Congratulations on a successful year of blogging! I found my WordPress stats interesting, too. Some of my most successful posts were written prior to 2014 and are still being found in search results! Here’s to a great year for all of us in 2015!

    1. It is great when posts are found though searches. I noticed that several of mine were found that way although they didn’t make the top 5.

  9. I was a busy commenter last year considering I took most of December off of reading, never mind commenting. 🙂 So glad I found you and congrats on having such a great year!!

    1. Thank you Jodi. You are a good pal! I think we both had a good year.

    1. Yours were good! I think I post more often. That ups numbers. 🙂

    1. Thanks. Just keep blogging and leaving comments. One of the best ways to grow readership along with blog hops. 🙂

  12. I am happy to be on your top 5 list of commenters! Apparently punctuality doesn’t count, because I am often running behind on reading my favorite blogs. 🙂 I don’t get those reports from WordPress and even though I say I don’t pay attention to stats, I kind of wish I did get them. It’s very interesting. I can view some stats through my webhost but they don’t always make sense to me.
    Congrats on a great year, and your blog is really looking good!

    1. If you install and use the Jet Pack plugin I believe you will get the reports. Some things about Jet Pack are good and others aren’t. I use it for comments and sharing etc. But I use other plugins for my social media. Thanks so much for your support Jan.

  13. Just what you need, another contest. But wouldn’t it be interesting to see if readers could pick the top two blogs in a year? For me, anything with Freighter is interesting, because we are watching him grow. Storm reminds me of Macha, related? And of course I have always loved the aging fellas, Thunder is becoming a dignified senior gent, the older Cullen became the more amazing he proved to be!
    They are all such unique personalities and the photos hint at that.
    Thanks for your efforts and what a wonderful album to have.

    1. Aren’t Storm and Macha Merlin kids? That explains the similarities. I love my Merlin girl. 🙂 It would be a fun contest. I will have to keep it in mind.

  16. I love your health screening series, tho I think I might have missed one. I loved the report mostly because of the way the stat monkeys put it together rather than the stats themselves.

    1. I now have my health screening series in my sidebar for easy access and if all goes as planned I hope to have another post for the series next week.

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