Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Top 25 Most Popular Posts on Genea-Musings in 2012

Like many other genea-bloggers, I'm curious about which posts on Genea-Musings are "popular" - and why they might be.I cannot see the statistics from Google Analytics any longer for some reason - it worked fine until 2012...and provided much more information than Google Blogger View Counts does now.  Oh well!

Here are the Top 25 Genea-Musings blog posts from 2012 that had the most page views in 2012 (from View Count statistics on Google Blogger Posts page, not Blogger Stats, which differ significantly from the View Count). 


1)  "The Chart Chick's Quick Insider's Guide to Salt Lake City" book is out! (23 January 2012, 2,815 hits).  I guess folks looking for Janet's book generates a lot of hits!

2)  My Fold3 Subscription was Discounted Because I have an Ancestry.com Subscription (24 February 2012, 2,505 hits).  I can see how this would be a popular page!

3)  Neil Armstrong - Rest in Peace, Son of America (25 August 2012, 2,091 hits).  This drew hits from folks outside the genealogy community.

4) Will there be a Family Tree Maker 2013? (9 August 2012, 1,582 hits).  

5)  Amanuensis Monday - Will of Solomon Keyes (1631-1702) of Chelmsford, Mass. (24 September 2012, 1,544 hits).  I have no idea why this one Amanuensis Monday post got so many hits - perhaps the name?


7)  Winner of Second Genea-Musings Ancestry Membership Contest (30 October 2012, 1,278 hits).  Contests were good hitters.



11)  My Top 10 Genealogy Tools (5 October 2012, 1,068 hits).  

12)  Are You an Evidence-Based or a Conclusion-Based Genealogist? (20 February 2012, 1,026 hits).

13)  Win an iPad2 in the RootsMagic Treasure Hunt! (30 January 2012, 1,010 hits).  This contest used Genea-Musings for one of the clues.

14)  Comments on Archives.com Acquisition by Ancestry.com (25 April 2012, 998 hits).

15) Are You Prepared to Research Without the SSDI? (13 February 2012, 983 hits).

16)  WikiTree Launches G2G Q&A Feature (14 March 2012, 922 hits).  

17) Results from Ancestry.com Autosomal DNA Tests - Post 1 (16 April 2012, 906 hits).

18) Ten Reasons Why I Use a Genealogy Software Program (12 March 2012, 883 hits).

19) NARA Responses to 1940 Census Comments (30 March 2012, 861 hits).

20) Pennsylvania Church and Town Records, 1708-1985 on Ancestry.com (26 January 2012, 796 hits).

21) New Family Tree Maker 2012 Update (21 September 2012, 793 hits).

22) How the World Views Genealogists... (17 February 2012, 779 hits).

23) Citing an Unsuccessful Search (29 June 2012, 757 hits).

24) Trying to be an Evidenced-Based Researcher- Does This Work? (28 February 2012, 747 hits).

25) Samples of Essential Reports for Genealogists (28 May 2012, 743 hits).

Interestingly, the #1 Page View post during 2012 was for:

Merry Christmas to All! (25 December 2011, 14,941 hits on Blogger Stats).  This must have shown up near the top of a Google Search page, perhaps on the Images page.

Note that that post was written in 2011, not 2012.  There may have been other posts from 2011 and earlier that had more hits in 2012 than the list above, but probably not many.

Of course, all of my blog posts are viewed by many more readers than those that go to the web page for the post - those who read them on the Genea-Musings home page, those that read them in an RSS reader, or on a mobile device, and those that receive them via email.

Another measure of popularity or readership might be in the number of comments generated by each post.  I don't think that is a reliable measure of popularity because of the proliferation of RSS reader usage, email usage, and mobile device usage, each of which require one or more click throughs to get to the comment box.

It certainly seems like readers search for pop culture topics or for genealogy software topics and find my blog posts.

Previous "most popular" posts on Genea-Musings are:

*  2011: Top 25 Posts in 2011 on Genea-Musings
*  2010:  Genea-Musings Top 20 Hits for 2010
* 2009: Genea-Musings Statistics for 2009 - Post 2
* 2008: 
Genea-Musings top posts - by page views


The URL for this post is:  http://www.geneamusings.com/2013/01/top-25-most-popular-posts-on-genea.html

Copyright (c) 2013, Randall J. Seaver

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