I started writing this post a few weeks ago when 50,000 pageviews was starting to become visible in the near distance. One of you reading this today will be the official 50,000th person. (I won’t be able to tell which of course).

Recently I realised that should be at least 50k. WordPress (the site platform) was not reporting internal links from other WP sites, so I’ve no idea how many were missing, over almost two years (the first year I had low numbers anyway) and once the WP referrals started to be counted, the numbers jumped over a week, then they (WordPress) broke the reporting again, but it looks like I passed 50,000 some time ago, maybe weeks. Page views is a pretty inaccurate figure, but it’s one of only measurements I’ve got for this niche open water swimmer blog. (I actually hate that word blog, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, and will again). Traffic has been steadily incremental.

But Thanks Very Much Everyone!

This is the 492nd post! I have no idea how many words. About 600 images uploaded (Maybe two-thirds of those I’ve taken myself).

In Analytic terms, I broke into the Top 4 Million of popular websites … Yeah, I know, that doesn’t sound like much. It can vary on a given week though by up to three-quarters million ranking, which doesn’t seem to be traffic related or even related to the pages linking in. Links-in continue to increase, thanks very much to those who add my page to their links.

Links-In are important for Google Search results. The Site Page Rank is Three, compared for example to Sandycoveswimmers.com, also at Three and Evan’s freshwaterswimmer.com. at Four. Congrats Evan! The Page Rank Scale is out of Ten. However the Average page rank of the webs billions of page is … Zero! Google hold onto details on size of ranks, etc.

email Subscribers are from the USA, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Philippines, Germany Switzerland and Netherlands, at least! Hello to you all and thanks very much.

Ok, it’s not quite what Google itself gets every minute (two million). But it’s not bad for a niche sport and again, it wouldn’t happen without readers.

What you readers have to put with:

• Some guy blathering on about the sea and swimming.
• Who regularly manages to put his foot in it (you should see some of the comments and emails I’ve received, and I’ve never tried to be controversial, natural Irish ability?)
•  Who does continue to try to stick to his ethos of putting everything he knows about open water swimming here. Even if it’s sometimes wrong, or there’s better ways of doing it. And even with all the digressions.

I have NO regional stats however, but readership is about 50% USA, 50% everywhere else.

Apart from Front Page views, the most popular ever day was during my own English Channel swim (giving you value for money by spending an extra six hours in the water!) and the What Temperature Is Too Cold To Swim In articles (variation). Expect occasional further ruminations on this question as they occur to me.

The Top Ten searches that brought people here aren’t very revealing, they seem pretty random, except the loneswimmer moniker seems alive and well, and has grown in recognition beyond my imagining, thanks to the Sandycove Swimmers crew and Steve Munatones and Daily News of Open Water Swimming. Diana Nyad’s publicity for her swims seems wildly effective if the searches are anything to go by. Penny Palfrey is also hugely popular. A short post on a prehistoric sea creature, Anomalocaris brings in a lot! And in a windy world, we see an obvious interest in weather. As an open water swimmer, who therefore don’t look like an athletic ideal, I am delighted that people are open to the differences in athlete’s body shapes.

A lot of people have seen my Swim Box and were curious. I put the Swim Box up for a laugh, and I’m constantly surprised that it seems to have developed a personality of its own, and I often meet people who have already seen it, either on the site or at the Guillamene, before I’ve met them.

Another thing from the searches is that while the more technical HOWTO topics might not capture people’s attention when they are published (and very rarely garner any comments at all), they nonetheless bring in a constant flow of people.

Meteorology and sea-related related articles, such as exploring prevailing winds or tides or waves, bring in a continuous stream and occasional diversion on swimming locations and Irish landscape and language are surprisingly popular. My article on the etiquette of lane swimming is also a perennial, showing the frustrations of lane swimmers worldwide, and it’s been know to be printed out for swimming pools that care about their customer, unlike one pool I could mention.

95% of the time I can’t tell what will be popular, which is just as well I think, since I’m writing from whatever interests me and what I can consider relevant or useful to open water swimming. For example an ordinary post called about An Ordinary Irish Early Summer’s Swim was popular when I wasn’t sure anyone would be interested in it.

So far I’ve managed to stick to my own self-imposed rule, at least to my own standards. I do like to explore aspects of the natural world that occasionally seem tangential, but mostly the marine environment. Mentions of Irish Place Names and the images from my Project Copper, swimming all of Waterford’s Copper Coast were also popular. The inspiration from Evan Morrison’s Freshwaterswimmer to be more assiduous in posting mixed media seems beneficial, I’ve always been visually driven anyway, just not very good at photography, but if you take enough photo’s, some will turn out okay.

If I take out references to people, the top results become more interesting. Searchs related to Tramore and or the Waterford coast are unsurprising, since that’s where I swim and write most about.

Who would thought a swim watch review would be so popular? Also with Google’s Auto-complete now used as standard, terms will bring people here when they almost definitely were looking for something else (tentacle porn anyone?)