Most popular posts of 2015, such that they were

It has been my custom at the end of each year to list the most-read posts on my website. But this list for 2015 is most disappointing. Perhaps this list might be the last. Or at least the last in this form.

Chart of website traffic 2015

This website doesn’t get much traffic. Once you take out the home page, the about page, and the media page, most pages are only viewed few hundred times.

And in terms of popularity, you have to get past some ancient stuff that just happens to have plenty of Google juice — including all the pre-2015 items listed over the fold — before you get to something actually written in 2015. In 26th spot.

Even then, all ten items are posts related to The 9pm Edict podcast, and I’m pretty sure they only got traffic because I tweeted them repeatedly.

  1. Announcing “The 9pm Live Animal Experiments 1”, 3 November. Even this supposedly “most popular” post only scored 179 pageviews.
  2. The 9pm Sleepless in Canberra, 8 February.
  3. Coming Soon: The 9pm Urgent Hardware Refresh, 24 June.
  4. Live Blog: The 9pm Dirty, Dirty Chasm, which was published in May but taken down when I changed my mind.
  5. The 9pm Orgy of Confusion, 31 May.
  6. The 9pm Planet of Fascist Delusions, 21 June.
  7. The 9pm I can’t believe it’s not January, 1 February.
  8. The 9pm Public House Forum 1, 13 September.
  9. The 9pm Malcolmgasm, 20 September.
  10. The 9pm Statement of Regret, 15 April.

The first text article is down at the the 56th spot, It’s time to turn around the Revenue Ship, and fast. It was published on 5 April, and scored just 103 pageviews.

And here are the 10 most-read posts of 2015 that weren’t written in 2015.

  1. So this is human sexuality? Dating from 2008, this is just a page full of sexual terms compiled from spam. I guess it’s full of Google juice, because it keeps topping the list.
  2. Anzac Day Rememberings, written in 2008. The traffic to this page was largely the result of me tweeting the link around Anzac Day 2015.
  3. Common Ground run by a dangerous cult? Another one from 2008, triggered by concerns I had about the organisation that once ran the Common Ground cafe in Katoomba and, in mobile form, various community events including Sydney’s Royal Easter Show.
  4. Right, Google, you stupid cunts, this is simply not on! My infamous expletive-laden post from 2011.
  5. Country music fans have highest suicide rate, being a brief note on some “science”.
  6. Which are the best Australian political blogs? The question was asked in 2008, but there were few answers. I guess people still ask the question, and this page does have that question on it, hence the traffic.
  7. Senator Penny Wong. This is just a brief note from 2007, but people keep finding it when they seek out the story of the death of Senator Wong’s younger brother, my very dear and much-missed mate Toby Wong.
  8. More Steve Irwin jokes, a depressing message about human nature from 2006.
  9. Adventures in Identity: Still struggling with Google+
  10. Unreliable Bangkok 1: Smell, one of the seven vignettes of my 2007 trip to Thailand. I still think these are amongst my better writing. Here’s the full list.

If you’d like to compare this with previous years, well, you can.