Looking for What?

Some of my fellow geneabloggers (Becky at kinexxions and Randy at Genea-Musings) have posted an analysis of their blog traffic (or how do people get to their blogs and what are they looking for). Since I didn’t tear up the blogging world last year with tons of posts, I figure it won’t be difficult to analyze my traffic.

Since January 5, 2010, most people have found my blog via a search engine -355 to be exact, with 238 coming from Google; 87 from Google Image; 11 from Yahoo; 11 from Bing; 2 from search.comcast.net; 2 from Google Mobile; and 1 each from Ask, earthlink, isearch, and dogpile.  There were 68 views through Geneabloggers; 62 from Google Reader; 42 from Facebook; 42 from WordPress; 17 from the WordPress dashboard; and several from other geneablogs; and genealogy websites.

The average page view in 2011 was 16 compared with 20 in 2010, 28 in 2009, and 34 in 2008. My guess is due to the fact that I didn’t write consistently in 2011 and my blog was removed from several “have to read daily” lists. Hoping to change that this year!

The Top 10 posts that readers landed on in 2011 in ascending order:

#10: You Might Be a Genealogist If . . . – 93 views
#9: What a Bunch of Hooey – 103 views
#8: Remembering Sharon Amore Brittigan – 108 Views
#7: About (this is my about page) – 121 views
#6: Cousin to James Madison – 176 views
#5: Letters From Germany – Part 1 – 178 views
#4: Membership Lists – Part I – 182 views
#3: Surnames – 188 views
#2: How Does Your Name Rank – 329 views
#1: Home Page – 2,386 views (which would be expected that the Home Page gets the most views)

The search terms used that brought folks to my blog include: disneyland branches, rank my name, wordpress genealogy, where does my name rank, american legion logo, letters, bunch of hooey, branches of disneyland, a bunch of hooey, nancy caylor stern (wow! someone looking for my 2nd great-grandmother!), letter to grandparents, and eastern star. Guess that explains which posts got top billing!  Terms used to search for one of my ancestors: Joseph Miller/Katherine Botafield, wilt genealogy, baker amore reunion, nancy caylor, shively, “blazer” family history ohio, wilt ancestry, Sharon Amore Brittigan, Humphrey Madison (this does not include all the searches for genealogy of President James Madison), Elias Caylor, “Sharon Amore”, “James W House” Ohio and more.

Top Clicks in the past year (these are web sites that were in a post that were clicked on): Baby Names and Genea-Musings (glad I could send Randy some traffic!).

WordPress has a terrific statistics page (which I will allow to be seen publicly – 2011 Annual Report) that showed me most of this information – the numbers I had to get from the regular stat page.  Most of the visitors to my blog were from the United States, Canada and the UK.

The post that received the most comments in 2011 was A Sad Anniversary about the loss of my grandmother in 1984.

So for all of my faithful readers – I will do my best to write more in 2012 and visit (& leave comments) on more genea-blogs!

Read Full Post »

I Am on Fire!

My husband gave me a Kindle Fire for Christmas, and I am LOVING it!  I can sit on the couch with the kindle in my hands and listen to Pandora Radio (which I really like – especially the shuffle feature), scan the web, play Angry Birds (not very good at!), and read books. However, the one thing I can not do at this time is write blog posts.  WordPress doesn’t have an app that is compatible with the Kindle Fire. (Sad face)  It allows me to get into my dashboard and click (or rather, touch) the New Post icon. I can enter a title but I can’t write a post. This post was started on my Kindle – well, only the title. I spent quite awhile scanning for an app that will work but nothing. Oh, well. Apparently there’s supposed to be one coming – when, I don’t know.

I did download the Ancestry app which allows me to have my uploaded trees with me wherever I go. Handy if I happen to be at the library and come across something in a reference book. Then I can at least have the names and dates with me for guidance.

So what new technology did you get for Christmas or Hannukah? How are you using it for genealogy?

Read Full Post »