This last year will go down in the history of CabbieBlog. It started with a fairly healthy number of hits, with the previous month (December 2020) having the highest number ever, with everyone at home the hit rate was bound to rise. Unfortunately with everyone returning to the home office numbers have been on a downward slide this year, although it is reassuring that CabbieBlog has attracted a core of regular readers and commentators. Thank You All.
Never content with CabbieBlog’s appearance again minor changes have been made: social icons, a Ko-Fi donation button and weekly London Quote. London Grill has made a reappearance and at the start of every month a quiz titled Test Your Knowledge, thank you all for contributing and taking part.
On a less upbeat side, I’ve been trying to cope with WordPress’s Block Editor and found it impossible – see last Tuesday’s post.
So with more information than is reasonably necessary, here are the annual blogging statistics for 2021. As before, with the data amassed over the last year, I’ve broken it down into bite-sized chunks with comparable figures for the previous year.
Blog visitors and page views
Difficult to gauge, for instance, CabbieBlog has 173 followers on Bloglovin’ so none of their views will be recorded, but according to my basic counter the numbers of visitors has increased, but those willing to loiter around have also increased. CabbieBlog has attracted a number of regular readers, which, I suspect have found their way from BeetleyPete, which is very encouraging. (Average hit rate per visitor: 2020 – 1.6118; 2021 – 1.6216). This year sees an increase of 13 per cent I the number of visitors and page views.
2020
Visitors – 28,403
Pageviews – 45,781
2021
Visitors – 31,986
Pageviews – 51,871
CabbieBlog’s readers from abroad
The different countries whose residents have viewed CabbieBlog again include Jersey (at 19), Guernsey (at 5) and Isle of Man (at 10), as if they were sovereign countries in their own right and curiously the European Union (at 14). The United States leads our curious cousins with 7,133 a rise since last year’s 5,544 hits.
2020 – 137 individual countries
2021 – 140 individual countries
Number of comments
The yardstick of a blog must be how many of its readers decided to metaphysically put pen to paper and comment, and this year, despite, or because of COVID-19, has seen exponential growth of 76 per cent. I’ve said it before, one of the delights of blogging for me – and one of the things that keep me going – is the interaction with others that it gives us. There is a number who regularly comment on my posts, and whose posts I visit and comment on too. I’ve never met any of them in ‘real-life,’ or even spoken on the phone or by one of the messaging apps, but they feel like friends like we’re in a community together. And sometimes we get a kind of chat going in the comments too, which I always enjoy. To all of you, again a huge thank you for your encouragement or discouragement. Your comments keep me submitting regular posts for your perusal. I’m delighted, obviously.
2020 – 169
2021 – 296
Number of ‘Likes’
When you have a super, intelligent and engaging blog that is blessed with visitors that clearly repeatedly like to Like, you are in a favourable position. On 15th November 2021 the Burghers of WordPress informed me that CabbieBlog has received a total of 1,000 Likes during its lifetime. So you see the Likes are on a huge upward trend, again a huge thank you for touching the Like button at the foot of every post.
2020 – 359
2021 – 739
Followers of CabbieBlog
My e-mail updates only include a brief description so many of you will have had to peruse the site to read the full post. I can’t calculate how many times you have taken the trouble to follow these notifications and read my inciteful posts, but thanks for following CabbieBlog.
2020 – 1,315
2021 – 1,368
Posts written
Most of this year’s output has been new material, although Monday’s Quotations were not obviously written by me and therefore are not included in the count. This year’s increase is mainly from the addition of Wednesday’s Johnson’s London.
2020– 209
2021 – 231
Most viewed and least viewed posts and pages
It has to be said that some subjects take on a life of their own, while others just sit in cyberspace minding their own business. At the bottom lie many posts with only a few views a year, and some I suspect just sit there patiently waiting to be noticed.
2020
Highest post
London myths debunked – 2,282
Lowest Post
Site Unseen: Gwynne House– 15
Highest page
13 Survivors – 1,491
Lowest page
Privacy Policy – 15
2021
Highest post
London’s top-secret tower – 1,303
Lowest Post
Extreme London – 17
Highest page
The Knowledge – 2,846
Lowest page
The small print – 20
Pages written
This year no new pages have appeared on CabbieBlog.
2020 – 0
2021 – 0
Number of words written
My average output of about 1,500 words written each week has remained virtually the same this year as for last year.
2020
Words – 84,748
Characters – 489,994
2021
Words – 83,468
Characters – 487,420
Referrers
If you ignore the search engines, clocking up an impressive 25,300 hits, social media referrers are Twitter at 413 and, surprisingly, as I haven’t an account, Facebook at 1,739.
2021
Diamond Geezer
The Telephone Box
2022
Wikipedia
Diamond Geezer
In conclusion
This post is, of course, my highlight of the year, it also takes the longest to write, unfortunately, my readers don’t share my enthusiasm. Last year only 42 of you bothered to click on Statistics 2020, with only 4 viewing this incisive post since last March.
On 27 February 1557 the first Russian Embassy opened in London, within a year a trade mission brought sable skins opening up trade routes between England and Russia
The Neckinger River and the street get their name from ‘devil’s neckinger’ London slang for a handkerchief or the hangman’s noose
Marble Arch was built as the entrance to Buckingham Palace until it was realised that the arch was too narrow for Queen Victoria’s carriage
At Holy Sepulchre Church lies buried Captain John Smith who was rescued by Pocahontas when he was Governor Virginia, Pocahontas is buried at Gravesend
On 27 February 1975 PC Stephen Tibble, a policeman for only 6 months, was shot in Baron’s Court, hours later London’s first bomb factory was found
The gargoyles on the façade of The Natural History Museum depict the extent of palaeontological knowledge at the time of its construct
Chelsea buns originate from the Bun House which stood on the junction Lower Sloane Street/Pimlico Road and patronised by royalty until 1839
Millwall (Rovers) were formed in the summer of 1885 by workers at Morton’s Jam Factory on the Isle of Dogs
The Austin FX-4 taxi was introduced in 1958 and remained in production until 1996, only the Mini surpasses this record for a British vehicle
The term ‘Black Friday’ was first used in 1866 when the private banking house of Overend, Gurney and Co collapsed causing panic in the City
No throughfare is called a road in the City. Road is a corruption of the word ride and the streets of the City were too narrow for carriages
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