My 2024 Blog Stats || Numbers & Thoughts

2024 was a year of not caring about stats. Although I looked at the numbers often and made notes, I didn't delve into them or the patterns that I noticed. In 2023, I realized that looking at numbers a lot did not help my motivation to blog and took steps away from it.

However, I'm still a stats nerd. Instead of looking at the numbers every day and thinking a bit too much about them, I'll look at them once a year and talk a bit too much about them 😂 As I've written posts on my blog stats for the past two years (2022, 2023), I wanted to write this to at least keep the streak. It'll be interesting to see my thoughts over time.

This post will be a bit different from the last two because WordPress is blocking me from viewing my stats because it tagged this as a commercial site. I'm not paying more than my hosting costs to view the stats. The numbers in this post are high-level numbers that I can see on the app.

Also, the stats are just a tiny bit lesser than what they would have been because my Jetpack integration didn't work for a few days.

2024 blog views

In 2024, this blog received 172k views. This is less than half of the 2023 number so it doesn't look great in the graph but otherwise, it's a damn good number! My blog posts received thousands of views in 2024 despite me just doing my own thing.

Most of the views were for pages that I published years ago during my SEO phase. They lost a lot of traction because it's been a while but I'm surprised that they still garnered a lot of attention.

As you can see, the views kept decreasing over time because the old posts got less and less views. I'm also not working on new posts for search engine so the total view count is going down as well. While the graph doesn't look good, I don't want to work on bringing it back up.

Usually, I get more views November-January and that held true in the beginning of 2024. There's a dip in views when the holiday season ended. However, surprisingly, there wasn't a spike at the end of the year in the next holiday season. I was surprised by that.

Although the numbers are way lesser than what this blog used to get, I'm content with the numbers. It's nice to see that the tons of efforts I put in a few years back are still showing up. I like that some of my favourite posts are still being read by thousands of people years later.

I posted consistently in 2024 but they weren't optimised for SEO or targeted towards any audience. I simply wrote whatever I felt like. I wrote some of my favourite posts which will never get much traction because they're not "searchable" and that's okay.

sources of traffic

Most of the views and visitors were from search engines. There's no competition there. Even with dwindling numbers, search engine referrals far outrank any other.

Pinterest is still #2 as well. Technically, it is also a search engine. Whenever I had free time and remembered the platform, I made pins but it wasn't often. Like from other search engines, the traffic from Pinterest is halved compared to 2023 but it's still significant.

#3 and #4 being WordPress is not a surprise either. Ecosia.org and Reedsy have also been top referrers for a while. I'm a bit surprised that Reedsy still sends a bunch of referrals.

188 referrals from Instagram is more than what I was expecting. I didn't use the platform regularly for the entire year. Sometimes, I installed the app only to share a link to a post on the stories and I'd uninstall it immediately after. I didn't cultivate a following there at all and am pleasantly surprised that people still came to my blog through the random stories.

#8 Khalleed.com is interesting because their post on BlueHost linked to my BlueHost review and that sent so many people to my blog.

#11 Google Docs is the most confusing one on the list. People add my link to public Google docs? I'm guessing that an educational institute created a doc and linked to my How to Annotate post but it's still funny to see it as a referrer.

There are a few other .edu and Google classroom referrals, I assume for the same annotation post. Considering that I wrote the post "for fun" and clearly said that I don't have experience annotating in academia, it's received surprising popularity in academia.

One way I understand the rise of daily AI usage is by seeing how many people come to this blog through AI engines. As you can see, ChatGPT and Perplexity.ai sent about 50 referrals. Way more people would have benefited from my content because they'd have read a summary on AI engines because only a subset of people would click through to the source.

Some other random referrals that deserve shoutouts: Google lens (how?), Snapchat (????), Google Translate (Can you feel my confusion?) and Microsoft Teams (are people sharing my blog posts in their work chats?!).

best performing posts

I published 52 posts in 2024 and the most popular post was my review of A Time Called You Kdrama at #12. The next one was The Last Queen book review at #38.

Both of the above were published in January 2024. The Kdrama review got way more traction than I expected, even though I've seen my Kdrama reviews usually do well. It received 3143 views throughout 2024.

The top 10 posts were all old posts that have been doing well on search engines for years.

To no one's surprise, How to Annotate Books When You're Reading For Fun is at the top. The second post didn't get even half of the views that this one did. I wrote the post in 2021 because I was passionate about annotating and it took a life of its own.

The annotation post got 111k views in 2022 (my peak stats year) so 2024's 40k views doesn't sound much. But 40k views is a LOT and contributed to almost 1/4th of the blog's overall stats.

My book review of Fahrenheit 451 is another post that took a life of its own. I absolutely loved reading it and shared my random annotations. I didn't expect it to garner so much attention. It was published in 2022 but had its best year in 2024 with 5k views.

The others that made to the top of the list are not a surprise. They've been topping the charts with the annotation post for the past few years now. I'm surprised that they're still doing well in search engines after years despite the algorithm changes and lack of updates.

A post that didn't receive much views compared to the above but surprisingly got a lot of views was How I Made My First YouTube Vlog. It got almost 1k views in 2024 with most of them coming from Pinterest towards the end of the year where I posted ONE pin on it. It's been a year since I made a vlog but this post is still doing well because of that Pin. I've even received DMs on Instagram about it!

audience

I love looking at the countries from where this blog gets views. It's so cool that I write at home and it reaches people all across the world.

All of the countries on the above list have retained the same place since 2023. The only surprise is Indonesia which was not in the top list in the previous two years. It replaced Malaysia.

I shared my thoughts on the countries last year but I have newer thoughts now. My annotation post is the most popular and could honestly keep this blog "alive" by its own. That post skews my metrics a lot and I didn't think about it also skewing audience metrics.

It is possible that this blog receives very high readership from the US because of the annotation post. Most of the educational institutes I notice are in US. A lot of students from there must be coming to my blog.

I'm happy to see India being second, though. Sometimes, I feel disconnected from my community because I pursue a hobby that's not popular or mainstream. But it looks like a lot of people search things which leads them here.

engagement

Usually, engagement numbers are proportional to number of posts published. As I posted more in 2024 compared to 2023, I'm expecting a slight uptick in numbers. But then, I also think that active readership has reduced (and many of my friends quit blogging...). Let's find out together.

At the beginning of 2024, the blog had 2657 subscribers. At the end of 2024, there were 2663 followers. That is 6 new subscribers! The exclamation mark is valid because even 6 more blog subscribers is more nowadays. The number went up and down throughout the year.

In 2022, this blog had 730 comments with 39 new posts. In 2023, it reduced to 554 comments due to only 30 posts. In 2024, there were 554 comments for 52 posts. The number is same as in 2023.

There can be a few reasons for this. In 2024, although I posted more, many of them were book reviews. Book reviews don't get a lot of engagement due to different reasons. I also didn't write many discussion posts which would get more comments. The 554 number includes my replies and links/pingbacks but it's still a lot.

The top posts with most comments were Words of June and Words of October. It's unsurprising that wrap-ups got the most engagement because they have the most scope for discussion. I write random thoughts and life updates in them which are easier to talk about compared to book reviews.

Most of the comments were from my friends. Over time, the blogging community is becoming a tight knit circle. We're reading each other's posts and commenting. When people quit blogging, it's noticeable. In 2024 alone, I noticed so many blogs that I loved which haven't been updated in a long time. Among my initial blogging friends, I'm the only one still posting.

Although the number of comments might not have changed, the quality of them definitely have. As I mentioned, we're becoming a tight circle. We've been commenting on each others' posts for so long that we're friends now and write essays in the comments. I got many long comments in 2024 which I absolutely loved.

endnotes

This post is pretty short compared to my usual length and that's because I don't have much to say about the stats this year. As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, I took steps away from looking at stats. Jetpack blocking me from looking at detailed stats was good in that way—even if I wanted to, I couldn't see the numbers to think about them a lot.

I'm grateful for all the views and engagement. The world has properly opened up now after the pandemic and most of us don't have 5 minutes to read a long post. Is it really surprising that TikTok and Reels are booming in popularity? Even I find it easier to see highlight clips of my favourite TV shows than watch the entire episode. So the fact that my long posts get any views and comments is amazing. Each long comment is extra special.

I ended the 2023 blog stats post saying that I hope to be content with my work in 2024 no matter what the numbers are. I'm happy to say that I am. The graphs and +/- percentages stopped being important, sharing what I was passionate about was important.

In 2025, I hope to continue the same way. Whether my posts are popular or not, whether the numbers go up or down, I want to write about what I love and talk about it with friends.

chat with me!

Are you a numbers person? Have you noticed any trends with the stats on your blog or social media? Which content of yours gets the most engagement? Tell me in the comments!