If trends remain what they are, by this time next week, this blog will have reached 1 million page views.
In the past two months, this blog has received over 100,000 page views. It is averaging about 3,500 views a day, and for a time, it was receiving over 4,000 per day.
I started this blog in the July of 2008. Back then, I received an average of 16 views per day.
I have not had a continuous growth in readership since I started. During the fall of 2008, I blogged intermittently, and my readership dropped off.
I have also had drops in page views that I am sure are more the result of the vicissitudes of the search engines. Those sometimes help me, such as when a bogus story about a giant Landseer Newfoundland went viral. Apparently, I had a well-positioned post on Landseer Newfoundlands and FCI Landseers, which drew tons of traffic.
Of course, none of this would be possible without you reading this blog and enjoying it enough to post it on forums, send the posts through e-mail, and link to the posts on your websites and blogs. Although I do cop some flak from people who have nothing better to do than troll blogs like this, I am very grateful for the positive e-mails I receive. It is satisfying to know that this blog has made someone happy or has made someone think.
I am still keeping my comments policy relatively open. I need feedback. I need to keep refining my mind, my beliefs, and my writing style, and the only way to refine these is to let you contribute.
And I (mostly) enjoy what you have to contribute. If you haven’t been blocked, you haven’t totally ticked me off.
Yes. I know this started out as a blog on golden retrievers, which was originally a nefarious scheme to promote my writings on Helium. However, it has since evolved into something else.
And I like what it has become.
If it was my project I’d be excited. Congratulations.
My credentials as a writing critic are limited to a few years as a liberal studies tutor, but I’d say your writing is very honest. I imagine that you speak in much of the same way, and that’s very refreshing. I wave the tutor flag because as a result I had to read a lot of ambivalent and lackluster writing. Yours is definitely not that.
Thanks for the blog.
“I am still keeping my comments policy relatively open. I need feedback. I need to keep refining my mind, my beliefs, and my writing style, and the only way to refine these is to let you contribute.”
Delighted to have found this cracking site, retrieverman.
F.w.i.w, the Flatcoats suckered me in – but it’s your writing style that’s kept me interested. You manage to sound authoratative without preaching or bigheadedness: reckon this site is going to make me learn & laugh.
“Yes. I know this started out as a blog on golden retrievers, which was originally a nefarious scheme to promote my writings on Helium.”
Wtf!?! – With style & content like that, what’s not to like?
Yours – hooked,
RS Acre
“And I like what it has become.”
Me too !
“What it has become” is a terrific blog, a much-needed breath of fresh air among all the fluff about dogs that is floating around online. Yours is one of the very few blogs that I have bookmarked and participate in through comments. I appreciate and enjoy it very much.
Congrats, retrieverman! What a milestone. I love checking in on your blog, although I have gotten a bit behind lately. Here’s to the next one mill.
I second kittenz’ remarks.
I enjoy your blog for several reasons. First and foremost, it’s always a learning experience.
Then you pepper it with humor, toss in some sarcasm, and let fly a bit of frivolity.
But seriously, I can always count on a conversation worth reading, whether I participate or not. You give the brain cells a run for their money, something most blogs don’t do!
Keep up the excellent work!