Sunday, January 09, 2022

Onward and Upward

“Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.”

There are more than 600 million blogs out there in the web, two million of which post daily. Something like 77% of internet users still read them. You may have heard that blog readership overall is dropping precipitously, but quantifying that is next to impossible since Google has a vested interest in promoting the hobby / business / passion. In 2021 in the U.S. alone, 31.7 million bloggers published roughly 7 million posts per day, 97% of whom used social media to boost their results. We are in the 3% that didn’t: I like social media just slightly less than being boiled in oil.

Ten Years ... Sort Of

Anyway, here we are in 2022, starting our tenth calendar year of posting. As always there is much for which to be thankful, not least that in 2021 we passed half a million pageviews. Sometime shortly, Lord willing, we anticipate publishing our 3,000th post. Cancel culture has yet to cancel us, everybody’s healthy, there is lots to write about and the Lord is good.

Half a million sounds impressive, but if you’ve ever run a website you know that the numbers generated by Google’s Analytics program include a lot of static generated by bots and search engines that take their users places they didn’t expect. For example, there is a 24 hour period every year when Israel suddenly and mysteriously generates an uncharacteristic 1,600 pageviews or thereabouts. I’ve always figured that’s a Mossad bot keeping an eye on the world, but who knows. What it definitely isn’t is a bunch of Jewish Christians who all read the blog on the same day one day a year. Then there is the deluge of Russian readers who show up whenever the Greek word porneia is used in a post and presumably go away deeply disappointed ... a depressing but predictable commentary on the human condition. Next time we have to use it, I’m substituting an asterisk for the letter “o” or something.

The Real Story

The following graphic shows our Google pageviews for the last nine years along with my best guess at adjusting Google’s numbers to approximate reality with the various tools at my disposal:

Coming Untrue pageviews 2013-2021

You know, that’s still pretty great considering some of the rather obscure subject matter you will find here from time to time. We have had our ups and downs, but the last two years have been among our highest in terms of readership since the blog’s inception.

We remain deeply grateful for every reader who drops in and every comment made, and we thank you all for your faithful support. Given the current state of the world, we expect one of these days to stop blogging very abruptly — possibly mid-post. I look forward to catching up with you all on our way to meet the Lord.

Love in Christ,

Tom, IC and Bernie

2 comments :

  1. Tom, IC and Bernie, I meant to post this earlier, so in this case very much better late than never. I don't read every post and often I wander in only once in a couple of weeks. That said, I have always come away challenged and encouraged by reading your posts. So a hearty congratulations on your growth and I too look forward to meeting you in the air :)

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  2. Many thanks for the encouragement, Comreich.

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