So here we are, up beyond 100 blog posts over three-and-a-half years – so it’s high time for another long-winded stats post no one will read! Ah, who cares – I’ve said from the start this blog was for ME, so let’s get on with it.

The headlines over the past 50 posts have to be sticking with my promise to myself to review more board games (25 and counting), while seeing a massive drop in posts about listening. In short, I haven’t really got into any new music – hence the lull. But more on that below.

My post frequency has doubled from two per month to one per week, which I hope to keep up with. But it hasn’t stopped me blathering on; I still rarely come in at under 1,000 words, which is pretty ridiculous. Who new I couldn’t shut up?

But numbers are up across the board; average views per post, per month, per year etc; things are building nicely. So yes, I’m going to keep things going you lucky, lucky people. But look on the bright side – at least I’m not going into video or audio…

Crazy weird search terms

Paros is still out in front in terms of search terms that have led to people arriving here, with 47 views after people searched for it. This still baffles me as I don’t seem to rank anywhere useful, although I’m on page one if you search for ‘Paros games’. Awesome.

In other news, people searching for the following managed to arrive here too:

• oysterband -rolex
• should i take superpump max before 5k
• burgess and niple craig gallant
• up.online.up.listennic.in
• policestation in barcelona with horses
• worst waiting room
• treacherous orchestra are crap
• wavelength instructions to dice for the board game
• throwing hay ariel biggerstaff
• stupid rugby (x2!)

I expect being a freebie WordPress blog really isn’t helping me rank – and I’ll get my own domain name well before I succumb to Twitter! In fact I expect to have done that before the next of these posts; the only thing stopping me is doing the research into what it will involve – the process of which I’m sure will be a pain in the arse.

Global reach: You came here from where?

I still find it fascinating people read the blog from, quite literally, all over the world. According to the stats, I’ve been visited from 101 different countries! That is totally and utterly mind-boggling.

The vast majority are from the UK and the US (more than 4,000 each), followed a long way back by Canada, Germany, France and Australia. Italy and Greece are also above 250 visits, with Portugal and Spain just below.

My favourite ‘one visit’ countries are currently: New Caledonia, Reunion, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Chad. Most disappointing has to be Zimbabwe being down there with the ‘one visit’ nations: come on people, you’re not even trying! How can you be on a level par with Guernsey and Nepal?!

Slow ‘visits’ progress – but progress

My first 50 blogs saw me hit 6,000 visits, with the number now up beyond 16,000; so the second 50 posts have added around 10,000 visits. It would’ve nice to see double the visits but in my defence, those first 50 posts took 22 months – the last 50 have gone live in more like half that, less than a year.

The best month back then had 865 visits, but most had been half that at best; the last seven months have now averaged over 1,000 visits per month which feels like progress. I’ve also had my most successful day, with 267 visits on April 12. But this was only a small step up from last time’s best (234): I still haven’t had a post that has really hit the big time.

My best month now is 1,864 visits (April 2014), when the blog averaged 62 views per day. This was largely down to a tweet from Board Game Geek news for a piece I wrote on standards in board game journalism; which probably tells you I should get my ass onto Twitter! But still I resist. Why? I’m a gobshite – 140 characters is barely drawing breathe.

And the winning post is…

After 50 posts the home page/archives was out in front with 1,447 visits. And it’s still there, but it’s great to see more posts reach the 500 views mark – the top four of which were in the top five last time, showing the ‘long tail’ has some wag in it:

• 3,522: Home page/archives (was 1,477)
• 1,478: Card and board game podcasts (was 774)
• 756: Glory to Rome: The final insult (was 291)
• 565: Alea Apartments, Paros, Greece (was 433)
• 553: My Top 10 Essen Spiel 2013 wishlist (new)
• 503: My first Essen Spieltage (new)
• 502: Board game journalism: seven ways to raise the bar (new)

Again, and unsurprisingly, these are up top due to the links – although I can’t explain the Essen Spiel posts doing so well. I’m certainly not complaining though; in fact, I look forward to writing some more come October.

You’ll also notice the top ranked titles are all board game related. This isn’t surprising to me, as not only do I write more on that topic than anything else – I also don’t go out of my way to link to any of the other posts elsewhere. I’ll never write enough about books, running, St Ives or music to warrant the effort – but I will revisit the topics when it suits me!

• Go: 6 (7 in the first 50 posts)
• Play: 31 (20)
• Listen: 1! (15)
• Others: 12 (8)

Yup, only one of my last 50 blog posts was about music – compared to six on running! It’s not that I like music any less; it’s just the way I consume it has changed dramatically. While it’s still a massive part of my life, it isn’t something that drives me. While I listen to music every single day, I have no desire to seek out new music. I have well over 1,000 CDs – I think I’m full!

Are you referring to me?

There have been more than 3,600 referrals from Google Search, more than 600 from Google Image Search, and more than 60 from both Bing and Yahoo. But bless ’em, they’re doing they’re best with limited resources…

Facebook is over 2,200,  Board Game Geek over 1,700 – both mostly my own work  – and Twitter… 188! A lot more than I expected, to be honest. Everything else seems to be one-offs, although they make for a hell of a lot of smaller visits so I’m of course very grateful. Some of the sites have great names, but I’m too nervous to visit them…

Heading out from Go Play Listen y’all have headed mostly to… other pages on the site (woohoo!) or to Board Game Geek, with On Board Games (my favourite podcast), The Spiel (another gaming podcast) and Board Game Guru (my favourite purveyor of board games) getting some love too.

(Still) no comment

I moaned about a lack of comments and shares etc last time, but won’t do that again – I know it’s purely down to me not putting in enough effort myself. In fact I now have 70 people that follow the blog, which I’m pretty proud of – and there have been 75 ‘shares’ – seven of which were on Twitter! That’s up from two last time, hehe.

As for comments they’re now up over 200 but again, I make no effort to make a community of the site via social networking so can’t expect miracles. But maybe if I continue to specialise in board games, things may keep progressing.