Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Top 30 Most Viewed Posts in 2020 on Genea-Musings

 A)  Here are the Top 30 viewed Genea-Musings blog posts from 2020 that had the most page views in 2020 (from View Count statistics on the Google Blogger Posts page as of 30 December 2020):

1)  AncestryDNA Changes Coming Soon - What I'm Doing - Updated (15 July 2020) - 2782 views






8)  AncestryDNA Adds DNA Match Tree Icon to Ancestry Member Tree Profiles (21 April 2020) - 1016 views



11) How I Use Genealogy Software and Online Family Trees (11 November 2020) - 928 views




15) RootsMagic Version 8 Update - Two More Videos (4 May 2020) - 866 views

16)  RootsWeb Mailing Lists Shutting Down on 2 March 2020 (7 January 2020) - 837 views


18)  Did Sarah Giberson Marry Two Seaver Men? - Part I  (18 May 2020) - 811 views


20)  RootsTech 2020 Innovation and Technology Forum Summary (28 February 2020) - 773 views






26)  RootsTech 2020 Free Livestream Schedule (24 January 2020) - 661 views

27)  Where Are My Online Family Trees? (13 January 2020) - 654 views


29)  Rabbit!! Lookee Here What I Found. Maybe an Ancestor? (22 April 2020) - 644 views


B)  The ten most popular Genea-Musings posts since 2007 (per Google Blogger) are:

1)  Microfilm Scanning at the FHL and FHC (posted 22 July 2009) - 76,910 views.

2)  1940 Census Enumeration District Maps Online at NARA Website (posted 18 July 2011) - 64,200 views.

3)  Genealogy Presentations on Slideshare.net (posted 28 January 2010) - 25,940 views.


4)  Dear Ancestry.com: Are You Fixing These Problems? (17 January 2019) - 18334 views

5)  Merry Christmas to All! (posted 25 December 2011) - 14,900 views.

6)  World records for number of children (posted 21 July 2006) - 12,700 views.


7)  Randy's NGS 2010 Photos - Post 1 (posted 4 May 2010) - 9,345 views

8)  RootsTech 2017 Blog Compendium -- UPDATED (posted 1 March 2017) - 8212 views


9)  Ancestry.com Says They Will Work on Technical Problems (posted 11 May 2018) - 7910 views

10)  Book Review: "The Spyglass File," by Nathan Dylan Goodwin (posted  29 September 2016) -- 6,410 views


C)  Of course, all of my blog posts are viewed by many more readers than those that go to the specific web page for the post - those who read them on an Genea-Musings archive 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.  In addition, there are thousands of spam comments in the list (now Google doesn't block them and i'm too lazy to do it every day).

It certainly seems like readers search for Ancestry.com, conferences, DNA, and genealogy software topics, and find my blog posts.  

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


E)  Readership of Genea-Musings has dropped over the past year - perhaps persons have given up on reading my blog (and other blogs) on a web browser and have moved to a reader or email, or perhaps Genea-Musings has become old-hat and readers are bored by it.  for example, the 40th most viewed post last year had 680 views.  This year, the 30th most viewed post had 642 views.  

Google says that there were 1.27 million page views for Genea-Musings in 2020, and 11.5 million page views all time.  These numbers include views of "Pages" on Genea-Musings - the subject headings at the top of the post.

F)  I wondered what the least popular Genea-Musings post was in 2019.  I know that Surname Saturday, Treasure Chest Thursday, Wordless Wednesday, and Seavers in the News posts are not that popular.  The least viewed blog post in 2020 was Tombstone Tuesday -- Nathaniel Guild (1712-1796) in Guild Burial Ground, Walpole, Mass. posted 18 August 2020, with 99 views.

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5 comments:

EJ Blom said...

I placed 21th! What a year this has been. Luckily, things can only get better in 2021, I remain optimistic!

Linda Morgan Clark said...

I think when the pandemic put we genealogists in virtual lockdown, we really poured ourselves into catching up on a lot of unfinished genealogy research and virtual education. Result: too much of a good thing and we've started looking for other things to do. Blogs, newsletters, announcements, webinars, etc., no longer offer the excitement filling up our downtown with genealogy tasks. It's going to take some time to re-engage, I think. That's why I've chosen Amy Johnson Crow's "Refocus and Refresh" idea as our society's organizing theme for 2021. We'll work on getting back to the basics, and hopefully re-ignite our members' interest in their research.

Bill said...

Interesting list. Wondering how many are on your daily email list? I’m one and at least scan that every day and ready many of the posts.

Happy New Year!

Bill Greggs

Sara M said...

I read your blog daily on my email. Love it! Keep blogging! I've learned so much.

Randy Seaver said...

Hi Bill,

The best I can tell from Feedburner, the daily email provider, is that there are 3,433 persons on the Genea-Musings email list. The list dates to about 2010, so I don't know how many read the email every day. I haven't bothered to cull the list (I think there's a way to do it) for fear of disturbing a sleeping dog.