Though the exact date of our start is undetermined- we were posting under a different name and address before we bought Critical Hits- today is a good enough time to celebrate us finishing our second year of posting, and entering our third!
We did a little bit of reminiscing on our “One Year Later” post (and hopefully were able to implement most of the suggestions made then) and asked about our readers recently. Here is a more “behind the scenes” approach, with some bulleted lists of our various stats. We only installed tracking software about a year ago, so many of these stats are relevant only for the previous year and will be noted as such. Our traffic has increased quite a bit in the past year, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the numbers from this year blew away the year before. But when it doubt, round up for awesomeness!
Overall stats as of October 1, 2007:
- 18 Different authors wrote posts
- 635 Posts made. (not quite 1 per day, but not all that far off either!)
- 2,894 Comments made.
- 350 Different nick names were used in the comments
- 70,000+ Visits in the last year.
- 52,000+ Absolute unique visitors in the last year.
- 120,000+ Pageviews in the last year.
- 2 minutes Average time on the site (stick around for a while!)
- 10,000+ Spam eaten by Akismet (since we opened comments to everyone)
Top Authors (give yourselves a hand!):
- Dave ‘The Game” (318 posts)
- Danny “Bartoneus” (162 posts)
- Josh “DarthCthulhu” (41 posts, welcome back!)
- Scott “DrScotto” (26 posts)
- Josh, “joshx0rfz” (24 posts)
- Denise, “Elena99” (12 posts)
- Ryon, “spankleberry” (11 posts)
- Richie “Sion“, Vince (10 posts)
- Andrew “The O” (5 posts)
- Sean “Original Sultan“, Dennis “The Main Event” (4 posts)
- Eric, “Drackmire” (3 posts)
- Toby “Cloud“, Don, Steve “Foodist“, Kory “Heathkit“, Becky “Sucilaria” (1 post each)
Top Commenters (Keep ’em coming!):
- The Game (477 comments)
- Bartoneus (459 comments)
- The Main Event (246 comments)
- joshx0rfz (220 comments)
- DrScotto (159 comments)
Top Non-Author Commenters (we do it for you guys):
- steve (104 comments)
- Reverend Mike (93 comments)
- Abe (68 comments)
- Gavin (24 comments)
- Justin (18 comments)
Most popular posts:
- Fallout 3 Q&A (all the Fallout 3 coverage was picked up on a lot of different video game sites)
- Fallout 3: An Outsider’s Inside View
- 300 Week (RED SAUCE ON PASTA!)
- Fallout 3 Q&A Part 2 (only split into two because our theme broke on the original post)
- They Might Be Giants: The Else Review (I’m impressed, I’m impressed)
- The Case for Fourth Edition
- Inq. of the Week: Ridiculous Critiques (hundreds of people calling me a moron, also, most voted on poll)
- Bonus 300 Week YouTube: 300 Rated PG (THIS IS CAKE TOWN!)
- Heroes and 24 End on Vastly Different Notes
- Can’t Wait for Spiderman 3
Most Commented Posts:
- Real Ultimate Showdown Round 1 (63 comments- probably because it was a contest!)
- Inquisition of the Week: Ridiculous Critiques (39 comments- lots of arguing, and probably people ignoring my actual article)
- Inq. of the Week: In the Movies? (28 comments)
- Real Ultimate Showdown Round 3 (28 comments, still going on!)
- Inq. of the Week: Third in a Trilogy (26 comments, arguments about gut-punches)
Most Popular Categories of the last year:
- Anime (wish we had more in it!)
- Television
- Web Meme
- Review
- Webcomic Weekend (another woefully inadequate category)
Best YouTube of the Year:
Categories with the Most Posts
- Video Games (193 posts)
- News (168 posts)
- Science Fiction & Fantasy (121 posts)
- Movies (121 posts)
- Comics (116 posts)
Top Search Terms of the last year (there are over 13,000 different search terms logged):
- “Critical Hits” (as it should be!)
- “Twilight Imperium Strategy” (pretty funny for a game that I described as having a broken strategy)
- “Hobbit Names”
- “They Might Be Giants The Else Review”
- “Smash Hits.com” (apparently people would rather google and click on the wrong thing than type in a URL!)
Favorite Search Terms of the last year:
- “around the survivors a perimeter create” (I don’t know why this never caught on as a Yoda catchphrase…)
- “how does a corkscrew work” (Seriously, seems like this would not be the site to go to for that)
- “gut punching” and “bleeding from the ears” (I’ve been punched in the gut and am bleeding from the ears… quick, to the internet!)
- “topless women with lightsaber” (HOT)
Top Referring Sites of the last year:
- Google (in various flavors)
- No Mutants Allowed
- 9rules (wish we were members!)
- StumbleUpon
- Boardgamegeek
Top Blog referrers of the last year:
- Dave Chalker (what a jerk)
- Amber Night
- Raph Koster
- Denise’s old blog (but go to her new one!)
- Phil the Chatty DM
Top Visitor Locations:
- Washington DC, USA
- Baltimore, MD, USA
- Los Angeles, CA, USA (this one’s a bit of a surprise- the first entry on the list where I don’t know anyone who lives there)
- Charlottetown, Canada
- London, England
- New York, NY, USA
- Chicago, IL, USA
- Montreal, Canada
- Toronto, Canada
- Hyattsville, MD, USA
- Miami, FL, USA
Coolest Visitor Locations:
- Perth, Australia (154 hits – the closest location to being exactly on the opposite side of the world from me)
- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (136 hits)
- Buenos Aires, Argentina (122 hits, the most in South America)
- Petah Tiqwa, Israel (148 hits)
- Moscow, Russia (302 hits)
Continents completely without Critical Hits:
- Antartica
Whew, I hope all that was at least somewhat enlightening! So, as a birthday present, please tell us what your favorite posts have been, if you have favorites! And while you’re at it, take a stroll through the archives (2005, 2006, and 2007), and if you’re feeling lucky, Roll!
ChattyDM says
Yeah! You guys rock!
Bartoneus says
One of my favorite posts is definitely Blizzards Big Announcement of CowboyCraft. It was probably one of the better collaborations of ideas between Dave and I and if we’d thought of it a week or so earlier I think we might have struck gold with it.
Reverend Mike says
Hmm…I should develop me an opinion or two so I might get a mention in the author column…
DarthCthulhu says
I am so going to write a post about how corkscrews work now.
ANGULAR MOMENTUM AND FRICTION FOR THE WIN!
Yax says
Happy anniversary. I love the new look of Critical-Hits. Keep the good articles coming!
Vanir says
Awesome! Congrats, guys. Here’s hoping you stick around another two years!
Bartoneus says
* Video Games (193 posts)
* News (168 posts)
* Science Fiction & Fantasy (121 posts)
* Movies (121 posts)
* Comics (116 posts)
I love the fact that it took a few weeks until I created the video games category, clearly that was a good decision!
TheMainEvent says
Wow if I had written ONE more article I would have beaten that no good Original Sultan. Well, at least I took home the bronze in comments…
Amber says
Woot! Congrats! And keep up the good work all.
The O says
Keep up the great work guys! The site helps keep me stable while in school. 🙂
steve says
woot I is the bestest commenter eva!
in the words of the mighty bender.. Happy Freaking Birthday you flesh bags…you bastards.
steve says
wait.. did The O just crack a vet joke?!
Stable… Stable… get it?! hahahahhaha….
god Im tired
The Game says
Those of you lamenting your author numbers are always welcome to post here!
Bartoneus says
Steve: Your jokes make babies cry.
Reverend Mike says
I cried…
Max the Micro Niche Finder says
Hiya, i have seen your site when searching a few weeks ago and i really love the design! I just bought a new 3 character domain (cost me a packet) for a niche review blog, and i was wondering if your design is a free or paid one? I’m new to WordPress and about to set it up, and i would really like to get something with a similar look to yours. Any ideas where i could download or buy something similar? Thanks for your help! 🙂
Bartoneus says
@Max: Your comment made me laugh, back when this post was written we had a completely different looking website. The theme we’re currently using is called Arthemia Premium and I know that we paid for it but I don’t remember any of the specifics, Dave knows more about it than I do.