In my final look back at 2024, I’m looking at my blog performance and favorite posts again. You know that I love data, so this type of post is a lot of fun for me. If you enjoy data, too, take a look at the Data tag for posts you may have missed.
As I’ve said before, I’m well aware that the stats I have available to me are almost certainly tainted by bots, VPNs, etc. But, they’re still fun to look through. I know there are some other data nerds out there, so this post goes out to you.
All-Time Stats
Ah, the requisite look back over the years. It’s been really interesting — and cool! — to see how my blog has grown over the years. Also, a reminder that 2017 only had half a year, as I started my blog on June 15, and originally planned it to be related to books/reading.
Total Views: 203,291 | Total Posts: 759 | Total Words: 464,764
| Stat | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Views | 1,133 | 5,593 | 16,301 | 9,242 | 15,730 | 36,463 | 51,102 | 66,222 |
| Avg. Views per Day | 7 | 15 | 44 | 25 | 43 | 101 | 140 | 181 |
| Posts | 70 | 137 | 79 | 21 | 136 | 104 | 114 | 98 |
| Words | 46.6K | 99.7K | 27.4K | 23.7K | 88.2K | 90.8K | 124.5K | 88.5K |
| Avg. Words per Post | 666 | 728 | 347 | 1,126 | 648 | 873 | 1,093 | 903 |
| Book Posts | 41 | 73 | 26 | 14 | 10 | 12 | 12 | 9 |
| Fountain Pen Posts | 1 | 21 | 38 | 2 | 47 | 63 | 51 | 47 |
| Ink Posts | 0 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 34 | 9 | 21 | 24 |
2024 Stats
I ran the below metrics for all of 2024, and only 2024.
Top Countries by Views
Surprise surprise, the USA still accounts for the vast majority of my total views, beating out the next highest (the UK) by nearly 38,000 views. There was more change to my top 10 countries this year, with Australia and Germany and Spain and the Netherlands switching ranks, and replacing Singapore with the Philippines.
- United States – 42,124
- United Kingdom – 4,154
- Canada – 3,026
- Australia – 1,537
- Germany – 1,510
- India – 1,206
- Netherlands – 894
- Spain – 783
- France – 687
- Philippines – 634
Top Referrers by Views
A referrer is a webpage that sends visitors to a site — in this case, mine — using a link. In other words, it’s the webpage that a person was on right before they landed on my site. The number 10 referrer is a bit shady/suspect, as I can’t imagine why people were referred to my site by an internet speed test.
- Search Engines – 22,793
- Google – 21,951
- duckduckgo.com – 388
- Bing – 347
- Yahoo – 74
- WellAppointedDesk.com – 3,891
- PenAddict.com – 2,371
- GentlemanStationer.com – 1,849
- Instagram – 883
- Facebook – 872
- WordPress Android App – 347
- feedly.com – 135
- Reddit – 130
- sptps.com – 116
Top Visited Links
These are the top ten links that visitors clicked on from my site (not counting links related to my site, like my newsletter sign-up page). Please note, these are top-level links. That means that the home page of a website is listed as opposed to all of its subpages. As an example, if someone clicks on a link to my Instagram profile and a link to Jim’s Instagram profile, rather than both being listed with 1 click, Instagram.com would show 2 clicks.
- Instagram – 3,157
- Etsy – 812
- Amazon.com – 788
- a.co (Amazon short links) – 503
- Jet Pens – 616
- Google – 373
- FountainPenNetwork.com – 337
- RichardsPens.com – 194
- hidden.melz.io – 179
- CocoaPaper.com – 160 The website is currently unavailable. I linked to their Etsy store which is listed as taking a short break.
- YosekaStationery.com – 160
- HealthyCatStore.com – 151
Blog Posts
Top Posts by Views
My top posts are a surprise again this year. Only 2 of the top 10 are from 2024, and — even more surprising — only 3 are about fountain pens. I’m fairly certain that the Lume review would have been higher if I hadn’t turned off search engine indexing. I started getting a bunch of comments on that review from people seeming to think I’m affiliated with the brand. I may end up doing the same with Kencko just so it stops skewing my numbers.
- Kencko, Too Good to be True? (2022) – 3,267
- Plotter Alternatives, Part 1 (2023) – 2,418
- I Wish I’d Known This Before FIP Treatment (2023) – 1,900
- Review: Lume Deodorant (2019) – 1,378
- Plotter Alternatives, Part 5 (2023) – 1,333
- Plotter Alternatives, Part 2 (2023) – 1,295
- Identifying and Dating a Vintage Esterbrook (2019) – 1,093 This is also my most-viewed post ever, with 4,989 views.
- Plotter Alternatives, Part 0 (2023) – 965
- You Can Only Keep One (2024) – 919
- Pen Porn: 2024 Pilot Shareholder Gift (2024) – 892
My Favorite Posts
I had a harder time again this year picking favorite posts. Typically, my favorite posts are those that I put the most effort into, but that isn’t necessarily the case this year. I’ve also decided not to rank them, I’m going to list them alphabetically. They’re on such disparate topics, that it’s hard to figure out how to rank them appropriately.
- A Fountain Pen Rainbow
I had fun choosing a rainbow from my pen collection for pride month. I think I’ll make this a yearly thing. - Am I a Weirdo?
This post was just a lot of fun to write. - Athena: 1 Year Cured
I was so happy that Athena hit such a big milestone, then, on top of that, I got to include the news about the FIP treatment being decriminalized in the USA. Definitely a fantastic post. - Fountain Pen Alignment
This one was an interesting thought exercise, and a lot of fun to write. It’s more than a bit tongue-in-cheek. - Inky Madness – Diamine
This was fun, but also difficult. I’ll probably do more of these in the future, since this post really made me think about my ink. - Keeping Nibs Straight
This is the kind of post I always feel a little odd sharing — the “here’s how I do things” posts — but they do so well that I keep writing them. Based on the comments, it proved useful to several of you. - New Resource Page
I don’t think this post was particularly impactful, but I wanted to let people know that I’d created a resource page. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you should. - Review – No Less Than Any Other
This was such an amazing book, I hope this review inspired at least one other person to read it. - Stanford Pen Studio Series
Is it any wonder that I loved this series. I got to know the SPS artists better, and I had a blast looking at all the art. - You Can Only Keep One
This was another interesting thought exercise, one which the pen world seemed to have fun answering. I think I’ll do the inverse this year: If You Have to Dispose of One.
Looking through my blog posts for this section made me realize just how few unique posts I shared in 2024. I need to work on that this year. Of my 98 posts, 13 were pen porn, 8 were book reviews, and 13 were ink battles, leaving only 64 of everything else.
Thanks for reading to the end, I hope you enjoyed my post. What’s your favorite type of post I write? Do you have an actual favorite post? Is there anything you’d like to see me write about? Let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear from you.
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