Thursday, December 28, 2023

Top 37 Most Viewed Posts in 2023 on Genea-Musings

A) Here are the Top 37 Genea-Musings blog posts written in 2023 that had the most page views in 2023 (from View Count statistics on the Google Blogger Posts page as of 28 December 2023):


1)  1792 views:  The New Ancestry.com Member Tree Fan Chart  (posted 1 September 2023)
2)  1005 views:  RootsTech 2023 Schedule, Speakers and Sessions Announced (posted 19 January 2023)
3)  904 views:  Ancestry.com Introduces ProTools for an Additional Fee (posted 14 December 2023)
4)  826 views:  Guest Post: What Happened at AncestryDNA This Week? (25 August 2023)
5)  644 views:  NEW: RootsMagic 9 Family Tree Software Released (posted 27 February 2023)

6)  470 views:  Family Tree Maker 2019 Version 24.1 - Free Update (posted 9 February 2023)
7)  421 views:  RootsTech 2023 Schedule, Speakers and Sessions Announced (posted 19 January 2023)
10)  335 views:  Beware of the A.I. Chatbots for Genealogy (posted 22 June 2023)

11)  333 views:  New MyHeritage Feature -- Artificial Intelligence AI Record Finder(tm) (posted 26 December 2023)
12)   332 views:  Test Driving the MyHeritage Reimagine Mobile App (posted 1 June 2023)
15)  303 views:  Goldie May is Launching Five Exciting New Features for RootsTech 2023 (posted 28 February 2023)

16)  299 views:  Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Memories of the Decade of Your Choice (posted 25 November 2023)
18)  287 views:  Free Access To All Death Records on MyHeritage for Halloween (posted 26 October 2023)

21) 263 views:  Randy's Day 3 (Saturday, 4 March) #NotAtRootsTech2023 (posted 4 March 2023)
22) 261 views:  New Book: Essential Guide to Kentucky Family Research (posted 10 March 2023)
23) 247 views:  MyHeritage at RootsTech 2023 (posted 23 February 2023)
24) 244 views:  FamilySearch: What to Expect in 2023 (posted 3 January 2023)

27)  237 views:  Website Searches for Historical German Place Names (posted 8 October 2023)
28)  227 views:  Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- What Are Your 2023 Genealogy Goals (posted 7 January 2023)
29)  223 views:  Dear Randy - Who Are Your Favorite Genealogy Bloggers? (posted 15 June 2023)
30)  223 views:  MyHeritage CEO Gilad Japhet's Address at RootsTech 2023 (posted 13 March 2023)

33) 214 views:  Randy's Day 1 (Thursday, 2 March) #NotAtRootsTech2023 (posted 2 March 2023)
35)  208 views:  Happy Presidents Day 2023! 20 Are My Cousins (posted 20 February 2023)

36)  207 views:  Rabbit Holes With Randy - New AncestryDNA ThruLines (posted 21 September 2023)
37)  203 views:  Rabbit Holes With Randy -- Sketches for Relatives in my Family Tree (posted 23 November 2023)

Why 37?   Because I knew my blog posts views were down this year because of a general falloff in number of blog posts, stale weekly topics, plus my health problems.  So I listed 200 or more views and cut it back to 37, which happened at 203 views.  I did not include some of the regular weekly posts, like Best of the Genea-Blogs which occasionally had more than 200 views.

Genea-Musings had about 1.48 million page views according to Google during 2023, and about 14.1 million views since 2007.  In 2022, Genea-Musings had about 0.975 million page views, so the effect of all my efforts was about a 52% increase in page views for 2023.  

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

1)  1940 Census Enumeration District Maps Online at NARA Website (posted 18 July 2011) - 77,300 views.
2)  Microfilm Scanning at the FHL and FHC (posted 22 July 2009) - 76,900 views.
3)  Genealogy Presentations on Slideshare.net (posted 28 January 2010) - 25,940 views.
4)  Amanuensis Monday -- 1772 Deed of Norman Sever Selling Land in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts to Abel Osgood (posted 8 November 2021) - 25,500 views
5)  Dear Ancestry.com: Are You Fixing These Problems? (17 January 2019) - 17,000 views
 
6)  World records for number of children (posted 21 July 2006) - 16,100 views.
7)  Merry Christmas to All! (posted 25 December 2011) - 14,900 views.
8)  Randy's NGS 2010 Photos - Post 1 (posted 4 May 2010) - 9,350 views
9)  RootsTech 2017 Blog Compendium -- UPDATED (posted 1 March 2017) - 8212 views

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

#4 is new this year - for some reason that post was easily the most viewed in 2023! The other 9 haven't changed in the past year, except for #2 becoming #1.

C)  Of course, all of my blog posts are viewed by more readers than those that go to the specific web page for the post, which is what Google counts - those who read them on a Genea-Musings archive page, those that read them in an RSS reader, or on a mobile device.  In July 2022, Feedburner stopped their daily email service to subscribers, and I have not found an acceptable substitute yet.

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 review them and delete them every day).

It certainly seems like readers search for Ancestry.com, Findmypast, DNA, Dear Randy, Rabbit Holes, and genealogy software topics, and find my blog posts.  In recent years, few of 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 down significantly over the past year.  For example, the 10th most viewed post in 2023 had 335 views, the 20th most viewed post had 264 views, the 30th had 233 views, and the 40th had 203 views. In 2022, the 10th most viewed post had 646 views, the 20th had 544 views, the 30th had 441 views and the 40th had 401 views.  

Google says that there were 1,47 million page views for Genea-Musings in 2023, and 15.6 million page views all time (since 2007).  These numbers include views of "Pages" on Genea-Musings - the "Pages" link is at the top of the page.

I wrote about 820 blog posts in 2023, compared to over 825 for 2022, and over 900 for most years since 2007.

F)  I wondered what the least viewed Genea-Musings post was in 2023.  I know that Treasure Chest Thursday, Wordless Wednesday, Census Sunday, 52 Ancestors and Seavers in the News posts are not that popular, but they are the most useful to my research.  The least viewed blog post in 2023 (to date) had 48 views.

=================================================


Copyright (c) 2022, Randall J. Seaver

Please comment on this post on the website by clicking the URL above and then the "Comments" link at the bottom of each post.  Share it on Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest using the icons below.  Or contact me by email at randy.seaver@gmail.com.

1 comment:

Lisa S. Gorrell said...

It doesn't matter that several of your posts per week do not get lots of views. You are preserving the genealogy of your family and that is what is most important. Just do what you can. That's all we ask. Good luck for next year!