Best of 2020 Part 7: The Stats of Doooom

Big thanks to 2020 for making this our most successful year at mikeladano.com yet.  The final tally is:

284,513 hits from 135,708 unique viewers.  This is a massive uptick from our previous best year, 2018, which received “only” 215,440 views.  Thank you pandemic, because that’s what this totally is.  I had no new ideas for 2020; I had given up on “growth”, only for 2020 to come to the rescue with a goddamn pandemic!

One way you can tell this uptick had nothing to do with me:  All the top hits are old, old posts with deep roots on Google searches.

  1. VAN HALEN – Zero – 2331 hits
  2. AMERICAN DAD – Persona Assistant – 2133 hits
  3. #551:  You’re Wrong on Unmasked – 1318 hits
  4. RAINBOW – Rising – 1076 hits
  5. KISS – Alive II (Re-review) – 891 hits
  6. KISS – Kissworld / Re-review directory – 831 hits
  7. TRAILER PARK BOYS – Season 11 – 761 hits
  8. KISS – Unmasked (Re-review) – 727 hits
  9. #425:  The Soup Nazi – 719 hits
  10. #774:  The Original Mustard Tiger – 718 hits

The death of Eddie Van Halen caused October to be our best month ever, and helped push Van Halen to #1 this year as well as contributing to the record hits overall.  The Van Halen Zero review is now the most popular thing I’ve ever written, having been read 12,294 times.

By comparison, the best-read “new” post this year was:

  1. AC/DC – “Shot in the Dark” – 574 views

I guess the message here is:  recycle, recycle, recycle!

Hits by country in 2020:  Top Five usual suspects – the same countries as last year, just in a barely different order!

I already posted the stats for Youtube views on live streams, and I’ve also already done my look ahead at 2021.

What do these stats show us?  The power of both Eddie Van Halen and a worldwide pandemic.  I’m pleased that people chose to read my stuff at those times, but I’d give just about anything to get Eddie and our normal world back.  Since I can’t, I can only tell you this:  I don’t plan on stopping in 2021!  And that’s about all I can say.  2020 taught us that life doesn’t give a shit about your plans.  I had plans in 2021 and they didn’t involve sitting in this little space live streaming.  This time there is no plan except give ‘er.  The universe tends to unfold as it does.

I wish you nothing but peace, happiness and harmony in 2021.  Let’s give ‘er together.

 

32 comments

  2. Hey the U.S. is number one in terms of views nice! I’m happy your blog found lot’s of success with this pandemic. But I’m with you on wanting Eddie back and for things to return back to normal. I’m not a huge Van Halen, but knowing the influence Eddie had on guitar history makes me sad knowing we lost another legend. I’m not surprised “Shot in the Dark” is your most popular recent post because it’s AC/DC!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

      1. Oooh nice! I’ve been inconsistent with my AC/DC reviews and I’d love to read your reviews either way. I’m I haven’t read all the Priest reviews yet, so I’ll get around to them eventually.

        Like

        Reply

  3. Congrats Mike. I think it was all you and not Covid!!!! But you may be on to something with that Covid thing because I had a record year as well, I broke 200,000 views on Dec. 30th. Last year I did 109,000. I’d like to think it was me, but I know it was Covid. Still, it was nice to get the bump and for that bump to still be there 9 months after it all started.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

        3. I can’t complain, I always said when I started out that I just wanted to get some music for free and talk to a rock star or two so I accomplished my goals very early on…we have the most rewarding hobby in the world, I think. But best of all — we both have families that support what we do!

          In 2020 you made my mom a fan!

          Meat and I were planning that gag about the Richard Dreyfuss porn movies and I laughed and said “We can’t offend anyone though, the Snow clan is about half my audience!” LOL

          Like

        4. Yep, I haven’t talked to anyone famous yet, but I am okay with that. I have talked to you and your famous, so that counts. And Meat is in a band that has released a record, okay I’ve talked to a couple famous people.

          I am glad your mom is a fan. I will take any all people as fans.

          I thought the bit was funny. And trust me, my family wouldn’t be offended, in fact, they might come up with some titles on their own.

          I will be honest, I am surprised the Covid bump is still going. It has been a huge motivating factor to know I am getting that kind of traffic. I keep wanting to do bigger and better and push myself outside my comfort zone, thus the soon to be coming Queen and Judas Priest series.

          Liked by 1 person

        5. We will have to have you on in a future interview episode, maybe next time Steph comes on? Would that interest you at all?

          Personally I think with people being home, more are looking for indoor activities…music and reading are two good ones!

          I’m really looking forward to your Queen and Priest. I think I have all the Queen now (more or less, there’s that one live album from Montreal I’m missing). Priest will be fun with Harrison and me having recently tussled over Priest with Holen etc. Having your voice in the mix will be fascinating! I wonder where you will fall on Nostradamus…

          Liked by 1 person

        6. Thanks. I don’t know about Steph as I really don’t know his music, but would love to do an interview show one day.

          Well Nostradamus will be towards the end of the year as I won’t get through these as fast as the Kiss ones.

          Like

        1. It’s all we can do right? Planning is as planning does, these days. Just get up every morning and give ‘er, it’s all we can do. Give ‘er in our own ways and doing the best we can!

          Like

  6. You must be doing something right because your site pops up a lot in my google searches. Maybe I should stop searching for you…

    Anyway, my stats are 8500 views and 3992 unique visitors. The best year I have had by far! It helps that I posted a lot more. 113 posts in 2020 vs 18 in 2019, lol

    Like

    Reply

Rock a Reply