A quick look at my Google Analytics traffic stats for 2008 reveals the following:
Visitors and Page Views
— 31,480 people visited Newley.com this year (an average of 2623 per month) for a total of 50,901 page views
— Visitors from 162 different countries came to Newley.com during 2008. The top ten countries were the United States, Thailand, the UK, Canada, Australia, Singapore, India, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia. And folks from small countries, like Tuvalu, Palau, Bhutan, and Kiribati also came to the site.
— Traffic spiked ((The dip in October occurred when I changed the site’s design and neglected to include the Google Analytics traffic code, resulting in a lack of data for a time.)) in late November, as you can see in the graph above. That’s when anti-government protesters shut down Bangkok’s airports, leading to a flurry of folks finding the site via Google searches for news about the situation.
Most Popular Posts
Some of the most viewed pages were:
— Jalapeno Hands: A Cautionary Culinary Tale (10,104 page views). This post, about my friend C‘s cooking accident ((Moral of the story: always wear kitchen gloves when peeling jalapenos!)), ranks highly in a Google search for jalapeno hands and jalapeno burn. Judging from the 179 comments on the post, this epidemic has been simmering in the cooking world for some time…
— Waffle coated hot dog: Consumed in Kanchanaburi, Thailand (1,321 page views)
— Ecuadorian slang (1,220 page views)
— How to use Skype: A Tutorial: (1,054 page views)
— About me (888 page views)
— Bangkok airport closure: Fri. update (872 views)
— Journalism — my page of clips (560 page views)
Other Posts
Some posts from 2008 (and a few from 2007) that I like — but which haven’t attracted as many eyeballs — include:
— Our Northeast India Trip: Top 10 Images
— How to Learn Thai
— The Asus Eee PC: 10 Things You Need to Know About the World’s Coolest Gadget
— Why I Love My Grandmother
— Best Burger in Bangkok
— Audio Slide Show: State of Emergency in Bangkok
— Newley.com Exclusive Video: November in Bangkok
— StateStats: Analyzing Google search patterns
— My Favorite Podcasts: Updated
RSS, Twitter, and Facebook
— According to Feedburner, which I use to manage my RSS feed, Newley.com has 692 subscribers. But I reckon that a glitch has inflated this number artifically, and that the actual number of subscribers is in the neighborhood of 250. (Not a subscriber? Grab the feed here.)
— I’m happy to report that my recently-launched Newley.com Facebook page has attracted 51 fans in just a couple of weeks.
— And Twitter, which I began using in 2008, has quickly become indispensable for me. I have 183 followers. You can find me on Twitter here.
Thanks to all of you for reading. If you have any suggestions for how I can improve the site, please leave a comment on this post or email me (newley [at] gmail.com).
