Friday, December 31, 2021

Top 50 Most Viewed Posts in 2021 on Genea-Musings

 A)  Here are the Top 50 viewed Genea-Musings blog posts from 2021 that had the most page views in 2021 (from View Count statistics on the Google Blogger Posts page as of 30 December 2021):

1)  Findmypast announced major update to the National Burial Index For England & Wales (26 February 2021) - 3864 views
3)  Ancestry.com and Your Ancestry Member Tree (4 August 2021) - 2123 views
4)  Is This the Best Gravestone Ever? (8 February 2021) - 1940 views
5)  RootsTech Connect 2021 Class Sessions List Released (12 February 2021) - 1671 views

7)  Genealogy Pot-Pourri - Week Ending 2 August 2021 (2 August 2021) - 1254 views
8)  The Long-Awaited GEDCOM 7.0 is Here! (7 June 2021) - 1075 views


18)  Exploring RootsMagic 8 - #1 - the Main Screens (3 October 2021) - 892 views
20)  Changes to Genea-Musings (29 June 2021) - 861 views

23)  Rabbit Holes With Randy -- Wiltshire Probate Records (15 December 2021) - 854 views

26)  The Best Laid Plans -- Life Happens (28 June 2021) - 830 views



45)  What's Coming Soon To Ancestry? (16 June 2021) - 683 views

46)  Disproving an AncestryDNA ThruLine (3 November 2021) - 672 views

Why 50?  Well, the plan was to do a Top 30.  I guessed that 600 views would be #30 this past year, and I was listing them week by week in order and ended up with over 60 on the list.  So I cut it to 50!  

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) - 67,300 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) - 17000 views

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

6)  World records for number of children (posted 21 July 2006) - 14,600 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 a Genea-Musings archive page, those that read them in an RSS reader, or on a mobile device, and those that receive them via email (Feedburner still works for me!).

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, Findmypast, DNA, Dear Randy, and genealogy software topics, and find my blog posts.  In recent years, my research posts - Amanuensis Monday, 52 Ancestors, Treasure Chest Thursday, etc. have made the Top 40 list.

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


E)  Readership of Genea-Musings went up a bit over the past year - perhaps more persons have started reading my blog (and other blogs) on a web browser or moved from a reader or email, or perhaps Genea-Musings has become more interesting and readers are excited by it.  For example, the 30th most viewed post last year had 642 views.  This year, the 30th most viewed post had 808 views and the 50th had 661 views.  

Google says that there were 1.66 million page views for Genea-Musings in 2021, and 13.2 million page views all time (since 2007).  These numbers include views of "Pages" on Genea-Musings - the subject headings at the top of the page.

I wrote about 870 blog posts this year, compared to over 950 for most years since 2007.

F)  I wondered what the least viewed Genea-Musings post was in 2021.  I know that Surname Saturday, Treasure Chest Thursday, Wordless Wednesday, and Seavers in the News posts are not that popular (but some made the Top 50 this year).  The least viewed blog post in 2021 (to date) was Treasure Chest Thursday -- 1693 Marriage of John Smith and Ruth Cutler in Charlestown, Massachusetts posted 23 December 2021, with 91 views.

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