Two Years Below the Masthead

It is time for the second annual meaningless milestone.  Yes, The Ancient Gaming Noob has been active for two years now. And if I feel the need to sum up at the end of every month, do you think I am going to let a date like this go by without comment?

As I did last year, I thought I would write a bit about the site itself.

Basic Stats

Over the last 731 days, what has happened here?

Posts total: 897

Average posts per day: 1.23

Comments: 4,042

Average comments per post: 4.5

Average comments per day: 5.53

Spam comments: 85,620

Average spam comments per day: 117.13

Comment signal to noise ratio: 1 to 21

Strong Growth

Page views continued to climb over the last year.

page views by month

page views by month

If only this were a chart of my company’s stock price over the last two years rather than page views on a blog with no ads.

Traffic – Inbound

Who sends me the most traffic?

VirginWorlds – As much as I miss Brent’s hand-picked news items (and the power I had as one of the people who could submit news unmoderated!) his change over to an automated news gathering function has meant a sharp rise in my traffic from VirginWorlds.

Keen and Graev’s Gaming Blog – I have no idea why, but I seem to get a lot of traffic from Keen and Graev.  In general, being listed on a blogroll is not worth that much in traffic numbers.  I comment over there once in a while, but we rarely refer to each other in posts.  Not that I mind, but I wonder why.

EQ2-Daily -The EverQuest II news snaffling power house, I do not get as much traffic from them as I used to, mostly because I do not write about EverQuest II very often of late.  Cyanbane’s bot doesn’t even come to check any more.

CrazyKinux’s Musings – CK is hooked into the EVE Online community, so a mention on his site, or a spot on his weekly-ish speedlinking

Blessing of Kings – A great site that must get some serious traffic or wield considerable influence (or both) as I have only been linked over there for a few months, yet the traffic from there is in my top 5.

Other honorable mentions:

The Common Sense Gamer
Tobold’s MMORPG Blog
Van Hemlock
West Karana
Kill Ten Rats

Traffic Outbound

Of course, due to the quirks in Google’s search engine, the site I send the most traffic to is Nick Yee’s “Guild Name Generator.”  Still, other people get some traffic from me, slight though it be.

Potshot – Lots of cross linkage means lots of traffic.  I’m too lazy to launch key caps to make those special O characters though.

The Common Sense Gamer – I sponsor his podcast AND I send him traffic.  What a pal!

Hardcore Casual – Syncaine comments here a lot.  Sometimes I even take the time to drag his comments out of the spam filter.

Keen and Graev’s Gaming Blog – At least I return the favor, if not to the same degree.

Kill Ten Rats – A fine site, though I am waiting for Zubon to do a parody site called “Kill Ten Rants.”

Other worthy traffic recipients:

VirginWorlds
Tobold’s MMORPG Blog
Clockwork Gamer
/random
Blessing of Kings

Traffic Mystery

For no reason I can discover, I got a steady amount of traffic from Raph Koster’s site at one point over the summer.  Yet I could not find anything over there that actually pointed here.  Odd.

Most Viewed Posts

After two years, this is what people have been looking at.  I am surprised that a couple of more recent posts are on that list.

Most Used Tags

I am always a bit amused when people describe my blog.  Often the line is “It is a WoW blog that talks about other games” or “It is an EVE blog that also talks about WoW.”  But the post tags should tell the tale.

Entertainment is the top of the list as, if I used one of a dozen specific category tags, WordPress.com will put me on the front page once in a while, if traffic for a post is good.

So what tags have I used and how often?

Entertainment – 311 times
EverQuest II – 305 times
World of Warcraft – 226 times
EVE Online  – 199 times
EverQuest – 160 times
Sony Online Entertainment – 137 times
Lord of the Rings Online – 109 times
Vanguard SOH – 96 times
Misc MMOs – 90 times
Instance Group – 65 times
Podcasts -76 times
Wii – 34 times

It looks like I have an MMORPG blog that talks about a bunch of games!  I don’t remember doing so many posts about Vanguard though.

My Favorite Titles

Usually when I come up with a post, the idea for the post comes first, then the title comes later.  Often the title changes a few times in the minutes before I hit the publish button.  Usually a title is just a title.  Sometimes though, a title comes to me first and I find that I must create a post to support it.  Either way though, a good title to be quite satisfying.  Here are my favorites from the last two years:

The Unbearable Lightness of Diablo III – Czech literary references are the best references of all.

The Unbearable Lightness of UDP – I used that reference twice.  Must be my Soviet Studies courses coming back to haunt me.

Yo Soy Sony La Fea – Did I mention I watched Ugly Betty in Spanish?  Not that I actually speak Spanish….

The Dwarf from Suffren on the Steppes – An obscure Walt Kelly reference.  I grew up reading (and wrecking) an autographed copy of “Ten Ever-lovin’ Blue-eyed Years with Pogo.”  If you have a copy, you probably get the reference.

Single Server Theory – A less obscure reference to events in Dallas.

Angling in Angmar – I just like the idea of Angmar as a fisherman’s paradise.

The Economics of Badgers – I like the mental imagery that title brings.

Mammoth Explosion – I usually picture the Wooley variety going to pieces.

Return of the Azerothian Combo – A reference to a George Booth cartoon that ran in the New Yorker in the 80’s.  Only amusing to me I am sure.

A Year of Living Noobishly – A good movie reference is always worth it.  Some people probably even got this one!

Mutually Assured Negativity – I’m a child of the Cold War, what can I say?

Burning Sensation – I was more thinking of a line from a Mojo Nixon song than the band of that name.

If nothing else, this is some insight into how my brain works.

Not So Funny

And, once in a while, I try my hand at humor. (Most of the posts on this site are not attempts at humor.  Any hilarity you detect is purely coincidental.)  So we have the list of posts that I thought were a lot funnier than… well… they probably were.

And On to Year Three!

As with last year, I thank everybody who has visited this site, plus an extra thanks for each comment you left!  Two extra thanks!

We shall see what the next year brings.

12 thoughts on “Two Years Below the Masthead”

  1. Crazykinux

    Congrats on the 2-years milestone sir! You and I must be in sink cause I’m putting together a post for my 3rd year anniversary of CrazyKinux’s Musing this November. Great mind think alike they say!

    Glad to send some traffic your way, you’ve always put some great helpful material for the EVE community and I’m just glad to share it.

    Cheers!

    Like

  2. syncaine

    Congrats indeed!

    Oh and my comments should no longer land in the spam bin, since I left the company that was responsible for that. Another side benefit of getting fired I guess!

    Like

  4. Rohan

    Grats on the milestone!

    I do wonder about your spam comments. You really get 120 spam a day? I don’t have any restrictions on who can comment, but I get very little spam.

    I wonder if Blogger is doing something special behind the scenes.

    Like

  7. Wilhelm2451 Post author

    @Rohan: Blogger has, in my opinion, an annoying comment mechanism unless it is configured right (you and Tobold have it set to reduce most of the pain) which probably cuts down on spam some. And Blogger isn’t big on stats either, one of the reasons I went with WordPress.com, though I retain another blog over there. They might just not be telling you how much spam is being blocked.

    On the WordPress side, I did not have to moderate 80K comments in the last two years. I never see the high probability ones, they just get disposed of. Akismet, the software WordPress uses for spam filtering, gives you a running total of the blocked spam.

    The medium probability comments go into a spam queue that I can moderate or dispose of as I wish. That is where Syncaine’s comments used to end up back when he was working for some notorious spam factory.

    The low probability comments, which includes any first-time comment from somebody, go into a moderation queue and I get an email letting me know I have an action. Once I clear a person, they are usually clear for all time, unless they put two or more URLs in a comment, then I have to moderate again.

    All of which sounds like a lot more work than it actually is. Once in a while a huge spamfest occurs, but of late I rarely have more than 5-10 comments in the spam queue in a week.

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  12. Stropp

    Congrats on two years Wilhelm.

    Although I’m a little late reading this, I celebrated my two year blogiversary on the 11th. It’s quite a milestone isn’t it?

    Somehow it seems more meaningful than making it to one year. Since most blogs don’t make it past the first month or three, getting to two years is quite an achievement.

    Akismet has been a lifesaver for me too. It’s stopped over 50,000 now. One trick I use is for Akismet to automatically delete spam posts older than a month. I was getting about a hundred a day before I set that. Now it’s a half dozen if I’m unlucky.

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