This ride started back in October 2011 and if I’m honest I wouldn’t have backed myself to get this far - but here I am. So to mark this auspicious (ahem) occasion, I thought I might as well crunch a few stats, as well as seeing if any lofty vision I had has been met.

There’s been an average of two posts a month for nearly two years, although admittedly the frequency has dropped from one a week to one per month in that time. In my defence, life has been a tiny bit hectic over the last six months and I fully expect to stick to a much busier posting schedule going forward (two a month is probably realistic, at least).

And the winner is…

I’m pretty happy with almost 6,000 views on the site so far, especially as I’ve done next to nothing to publicise it (and nothing to monetise either). The best ever day saw 234 visits, the best month (September 2012) 865 and an overall average of 10 visits a day.

The most popular posts to date have been:

• 1,477: Home page/archives
• 774: Card and board game podcasts
• 433: Alea Apartments, Paros, Greece
• 291: Glory to Rome: The final insult
• 275: Good riddance HMV

These are down to some good links, as is the way of these things. The podcasts post was mentioned on Dice Tower News, I put a link to the HMV post on a well trafficked Facebook group and Glory to Rome was linked by someone from Mashable. I also posted several links to the Paros post on BoardGameGeek.

The least popular to date have been this week’s reviews post (which is wholly understandable) and my first ever post - which is still languishing on five visits. The only other post with less than double-digit views is my moan about why I hadn’t been posting back in December, which is again understandable - nothing to see here folks. But as I said earlier, this has always been primarily for me and these unloved posts certainly served a personal purpose, so that’s fine with me.

I rank for something on Google?

No, of course I don’t - but apparently 37 views have come from people searching for ‘Paros’ - I can only presume they were using Bing or something. These are my top 10 favourite things people have arrived here after searching for:

• pat jennings pfa awards
• eat twat
• so here we go go go
• julius caesar miniature
• big cocks wordpress
• boring seaside
• are people in dawlish strange
• langstaff breakins
• orange plastic hexagon game board with black plastic hexagon pieces with a hole with white numbers 1 through 6

and my personal favourite…

• wot crew rank

I’m sure they all found exactly what they were looking for on arrival here. If not, I can but apologise.

No comment

As someone who works on website editorial for a living, I’m used to the pressure that is rapidly growing on journalists to be ‘social’ in terms of the interwebs. Sharing and commenting are seen as crucial to a site’s Google Fu now, so if you’re not tweeting and liking and plusing then you’re not doing your job properly.

While I have no problem agreeing that this is indeed the way of things now, I don’t have to like it - nor do I have to bring it here once I get home! I don’t ‘do’ Twitter, never follow other people’s blogs just to try and get noticed and rarely go off spamming about my posts on other people’s websites. But of course the times my posts here have taken off have been when either I or someone else has linked here from a forum, popular blog or other website.

There have been nearly 100 comments made here since I started, which I think is pretty good. And even better there has been very little trolling or dissing of what I’ve written, despite occasionally voicing an opinion I know isn’t universally popular. Also, the vast majority of these have come on gaming posts, which surprises me a little; I guess it’s a smaller world, so easier to get spotted.

And there have been 20 Facebook shares and - count ’em - four Tweets. Fame at last.

From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe

One of the most mind boggling (if ultimately pointless) things to look at in the WordPress stats is the countries I’ve had views from. While more than half have been from the UK and US, it’s some of the other figures that blow my mind. The other 100+ countries are:

• 196 Canada: I have no idea - I guess it’s a big place. I’d love to go too, so please get in touch 🙂
• 184 Greece: That will be the Paros post. Hello Greece, see you again next year for the return to Alea Apartments.
• 164 Germany: The Essen post, plus they love their boardgames. Roll on October and the return trip.
• 105 Australia: Again, no real idea. I have a few old friends who live out there, but beyond that? Who knows. Hello!

The ones that really get the mind racing, though, are the one-hit views from places that have my imagination running riot. Just who, why and from exactly where did the following views stem from?

• Nepal
• Mongolia
• Bangladesh
• Qatar
• Brunei Darussalam
• Uganda
• New Caledonia
• Chad
• Moldova
• Armenia

Going, playing, listening

I’ve certainly continued to blog ‘for me’ - with what has been a mixed response in terms of comments and views of individual posts. And sticking to going, playing and listening has been pretty successful too. Here’s the breakdown:

• Go: 7
• Play: 20
• Listen: 15
• Others: 8

I’ve also dabbled with football and books and computer games, but only with a post each. I think they’re topics I’ll return to, but I doubt it will be regularly. And I have no idea why I’ve not done more travel style posts; perhaps it’s because they always seem a little daunting and I have the least experience of doing them. Must try harder.

Board gaming has really consumed me over the past few years and it’s something that doesn’t seem to be going away. Music is still a big passion, but just in a different way than it used to be; I still find joy in finding new music and listening to old favourites, but never find myself reading about bands or chasing down leads the way I used to.

To what are you referring?

It’s no surprise I’ve had the largest number or referrers from Facebook (1,000+), as I link most of my posts from there. There have been some nice individual scores from the official Wonderstuff site (mostly telling me off), as well as BoardGameGeek and GameSalute (mentioned earlier - the latter via dice tower News).

Twitter referrals are on a lowly 99 (maybe I should sign up… nah!), while Mashable and Eurogamer (thanks Matt!) have chipped in nicely too. Beyond some readers (its lovely to know a few people have signed up and then actually do come visit), there are two other referrers that have brought at least double figures of folks to the site: The D6 Generation (I presume they Tweeted about my mention of them in my gaming podcasts posts) and Dolittle (who linked to my live review).

There have been more than 50 sites with 1 refer - from sites on cancer, insurance and car stereos - and everything in between. I’m not sure what that’s all about, but who am I to argue? I hope they enjoyed their trip…

In the other direction I’ve sent more than 25 people to On Board games, Royal society of Gamers, Boardgame Guru and The Spiel. I presume the cheque is in the post.