As of today, I’ve officially been doing this blogging thing for five years. Hard to believe, isn’t it?
An anniversary seems like a good time to reflect on statistics, so here are some numbers. Since February 2006, Daylight Atheism has had 1,265 posts, 42,573 comments, and 7.8 million total views, representing about 1.2 million unique visitors. So far this year, I’m averaging over 11,000 total hits and over 3,000 unique visitors per day, which is well above the historical norm. As of today, the single most-viewed post of all time is September 2008’s Ten Questions to Ask Your Pastor, with over 70,000 individual page views.
I realize this is far from the most heavily trafficked weblog out there, but in my completely unbiased opinion, it’s one of the best, and I think most of the credit goes to the guest authors and the commenters. There are sites with much greater hit totals that don’t have nearly as vibrant a community of contributors, and I’m grateful to every person who’s taken the time to write a comment or a guest post. (Yes, I’m even grateful to the proselytizing trolls. After all, without them to practice on, how would the rest of us keep our rhetorical sabers sharp?) It’s all of you, not me, who make Daylight Atheism the lively place it is and keep it from being just me shouting into the wind. I tip my hat to all of you, and thanks!
If you all don’t mind indulging my curiosity, I’m interested to know some of the demographics of my readership. I’m giving this poll plugin a test drive, and I’d be much obliged if you’d cast your vote below [UPDATE — I’ve belatedly added a third option to the gender poll. Thanks to the commenters who pointed this out]:
Finally, consider this an open thread. What’s your opinion on the way Daylight Atheism is run? What do you want to see more of? Less of? Are there any issues that should be getting greater mention that I’ve overlooked?