2011 Blog Retrospective

I thought I'd do an end-of-year look back at how my blog is doing. What do I think were the highlights of this past year? And do the stats agree?

Three of the top posts from 2010 were still in the Top Ten for 2011, one of which (The 20-Sided Quickies table) got a boost because I recently revamped it as the Quickie Dice Tool. A couple new posts I didn't think were all that important (Wandering Modules, Hard) also got a surprising number of pageviews. The breakout post of the year was Clerics Without Spells, which I developed into several spin-off posts (including recent alternative druid and necromancer classes.)

Here's the full Top Ten posts, with stats:

1. Clerics Without Spells (using Turn Undead to work miracles) - 1,378 pageviews
2. Hard (commentary on a now-forgotten kerfluffle) - 639 pageviews
3. A Clone in Your Head (stripped-down clone idea) - 240 pageviews
4. Impromptu Towns - 195 pageviews
5. 20-Sided Quickies (old random dressing tables) - 184 pageviews
6. Wandering Modules (random book titles, just for fun) - 175 pageviews
7. How's the Weather? (using reaction rolls to generate weather) - 170 pageviews
8. Aurichale Empire (old setting description) - 157 pageviews
9. Quickie Dice Tool (updated 20-Sided Quickies) - 154 pageviews
10. (tie) The Quarter System (simple town layouts) and D&D for $2.99 (thoughts on a super-cheap version of D&D) - 143 pageviews each

I'm also getting a lot of hits on the stand-alone pages. Maps are, of course, a popular item (425 hits,) even though I ran out of steam after 60-some geomorphs. I hope interest doesn't die out by the time I get around to reviving Map Mondays. The Last-Minute GM features get a lot of hits, and the Links/Tags page gets enough views that I feel I should update both of those; they're kind of a mess.

Google Analytics gives significantly different results: a much lower count for "Clerics Without Spells", complete absence of last year's Top Five, and some pages with unusually large pageviews that somehow didn't make it onto the Blogger stats: the Perverse Polymorpher -- probably the craziest-looking thing I have ever done -- comes in with 240 pageviews, followed by a post on Logistical Problem Solving with 198 pageviews; Where and How to Search has 180 pageviews; Megadungeon Format Tricks has 153 pageviews.

The top key words that direct people to my site include variations of "nine and thirty kingdoms", of course, as well as searches for Liber Zero, but also:

1. "planet generator" (people looking for this, perhaps)
2. "hot elf chick"
3. "clerical vows"
4. "etheric beings"

In a couple days, I'll post a follow-up on the blog's future.