New England Australia reader interests November 2011

End of months stats and reader interests time.

The graph on the left shows visits (yellow) plus page views (yellow plus red) to this blog over the last twelve months. 

In terms of reader interests, the most popular posts over November were:

• Moree flood evacuation centre 444 page views
• Wednesday Forum - what hash tags should we use to promote New England? 185 page views
•  Wednesday Forum: resolving environmental conflict - 173 page views
• Wednesday Forum: preserving New England's heritage... 139 page views
• Coal seam gas & the rise of political and policy stupidity 107 page views
• Charles Sturt University to open in Tamworth? 93 page views
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - Bora Ring 77 page views
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - South of My Days 76 page views
• New England new state car sticker, 1960s 62 page views
• Round the New England blogging traps 10- a miscellany 59 page views

New England Australia reader interests August 11

I am sorry for the continued lag in posting here. Hopefully full transmission will resume shortly!

The graphic shows visits (yellow) and page views (yellow plus red) on this blog to end August 11.

The most popular posts on this blog in August were:

• The Poetry of Judith Wright - South of My Days 268 page views
• Wednesday Forum: preserving New England's heritage. 50 page views
• Wednesday Forum: resolving environmental conflict 36 page views
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - Bora Ring 32 page views
• Round the New England blogging traps 10- a miscellany 25 page views
• Charles Sturt University to open in Tamworth?
• Round the New England blogging traps 24 - land, mining & the environment 19 page views
• New England Story - the making of Captain Thunderbolt 18 page views
• Armidale Kempsey Road Bullock Drays 1920s 17 page views

The popularity of South of My Days reflects the school curriculum!

Blog performance July 11

Monthly stats time again.

The graph shows visits (yellow) and page views (yellow plus red) to this blog to end July. The decline over the last three months has been repeated on all three of my main blogs and appears to reflect changes in search engine algorithms.

The most popular posts in this blog in July were:

• Round the New England blogging traps 24 - land, mining & the environment 113 page views
• Wednesday Forum: your favourite food 74 page views
• Margaret Olley's New England connection 65 page views
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - South of My Days 62 page views
• Lismore, Dobell & Margaret Olley 56 page views
• Fossicking in New England 48 page views
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - Bora Ring 39 page views
• Selling New England 35 page views
• New England's Kamilaroi people - web search August 08 35 page views
• Armidale Kempsey Road Bullock Drays 1920s 24 page views.

New England Australia blog performance May 11

I am still bogged down on issues associated with New England's universities. I want to report on this in detail.

For the moment, end month report time again.

This graph shows visits (yellow) and page views (yellow plus red) to this blog over the period to end May 2011. You can see how the decline in traffic over the last part of 2010 has been reversed.

The most popular posts on this blog in May were:

•   NBN & Armidale 296 page views
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - Bora Ring 183 page views
• Margaret Olley's New England connection 165 page views
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - South of My Days 139 page views
• New England passings: Peter Gray, Maurice Kelly, Wilf Dews & Kevin O'Donohue  111 page views
• Wednesday Forum: your favourite food 110 -page views
• New England coastal stream 56 page views
• Round the New England blogging traps 10- a miscellany 53 page views
• New England's Kamilaroi people - web search August 08  53 page views
• New England Aboriginal life - process of language destruction 46 page views

The posts are an interesting mix of current such as NBN & Armidale and recurrent favourites, the Judith Wright posts.

NEA blog performance April 2011

The graph on the right shows visits (yellow) plus page views (yellow plus red) to this blog over the period to end April.

During April, the most popular individual posts were:

• Margaret Olley's New England connection, 296 page views
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - South of My Days, 99 page views,
• Discussion on re-imagining Newcastle continues, 77 page views
• Wednesday Forum: Re-imagining Newcastle, 76 page views
• Results from Wednesday's forum on overcoming division, 73 page views
• Wednesday Forum: Overcoming division, 67 page views
• Wednesday Forum: Leveraging Newcastle's inclusion in the Lonely Planet global top ten cities, 55 page views
•  Wednesday Forum: improving public transport, 54 page views
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - Bora Ring, 52 page views

I am struggling at the moment to post and respond to emails and comments. I would like to see more comments with other people responding. Can you help me?

NEA blog performance March 2011

The attached graph shows visits (yellow) and page views (yellow plus red) to this blog over March.

The most popular posts in March were:

• Wednesday Forum: Re-imagining Newcastle 189 page views
• Discussion on re-imagining Newcastle continues 189page views
• Results from Wednesday's forum on overcoming division  184 page views
• Wednesday Forum: Overcoming division  177 page views
• Wednesday Forum: improving public transport 166 page views
• Wednesday Forum: Leveraging Newcastle's inclusion in the Lonely Planet global top ten cities  128 page views
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - South of My Days 89 page views
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - Bora Ring 78 page views
• Margaret Olley's New England connection 54 page views
• New England Story - the making of Captain Thunderbolt  47 page views

Excluding search engines, the main referrals to the site came from:

• las.new-england.net.au 40 visits
• belshaw.blogspot.com 24 visits
• newenglandhistory.blogspot.com/ 12 visits
• http://nellibellingen.wordpress.com/category/urunga/ 4 visits

NEA blog performance January 2011

The attached graph shows visits (yellow) and page views (yellow plus red) to this blog over January. After the earlier upward trend, you can see how traffic went down and then stagnated!

The most popular posts in January were:

• Results from Wednesday's forum on overcoming division  260 page views
• Wednesday Forum: Re-imagining Newcastle 238 page views
• Wednesday Forum: Overcoming division 218 page views
• Wednesday Forum: improving public transport 204 page views
• Wednesday Forum: Leveraging Newcastle's inclusion in the Lonely Planet global top ten cities  193 page views
• Tamworth Floods November 2008 179 page views
• Moree flood evacuation centre 293 page views
• Water Wars - the Darling floods 285 page views
• New England Story - Stockton Beach 77 page views
• Explanation for a pause in posting 50 page views

Excluding search engines, the main referrals to the site came from:

• www.facebook.com 22 visits
• belshaw.blogspot.com 20 visits
• http://www.mediahunter.com.au 6 visits
• http://clarencevalleytoday.blogspot.com/ 5 visits
• http://commonwealthrepublic.blogspot.com/ 4 visits

New England Australia blog performance 10

I hadn't intended to take quite such a long break from posting. As a result, I now have something of a backlog.

The attached graph shows visits (yellow) and page views (yellow plus red) to this blog over the last twelve months. You can see the clear upward trend to August and then something of a decline since.

This is a little misleading. I will provide a another graph later that shows this. First, however, an update on the most visited posts.

I do not have proper stats here for the full year. The Google stats I use only started in mid June. Accepting this qualification, the most popular posts were:

• Wednesday Forum: the NBN and New England  651 page views
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - Bora Ring  558 page views
• Wednesday Forum: Leveraging Newcastle's inclusion in the Lonely Planet global top ten cities 540 page views
• Wednesday Forum: Overcoming division 454 page views
• Results from Wednesday's forum on overcoming division 454 page views
• Margaret Olley's New England connection 332 page views
• Wednesday Forum: improving public transport 319 page views
• Wednesday Forum: Re-imagining Newcastle 293 page views
• Wednesday Forum: the regional development deal 285 page views
• New England Story - Stockton Beach 285 page views.

I mentioned that the first grpah was a little misleading.

The next graph shows visits (yellow) and page views (yellow plus red) over the period May 09 to April 10. You can see how traffic took off at the start of 2010. The first graph shows that, so far at least, I have held much of the extra traffic.

I am reasonably clear in my own mind where I want to take the blog over the next twelve months.

I want to maintain the blog's role as something of a window into my New England. However, I also want to build the interactivity, making the blog a better forum for discussion on New England issues.

Obviously, I have my own views and will continue to promote them. However, I also want to encourage other views even where I may disagree.

We shall see how we go! 

Blog Performance November 2010

The graphic shows blog traffic over the year ending November 2010. Yellow visits, yellow plus red page views.

The decline in traffic after the big spike in August did stop in November. That was a relief.

December traffic is always down, so it will be interesting to compare this year against twelve months before.  

The ten most popular posts over November were:

• Wednesday Forum: Leveraging Newcastle's inclusion in the Lonely Planet global top ten cities 215 page views
• Wednesday Forum: the NBN and New England 204 page views
• Wednesday Forum: Overcoming division 104 page views
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - Bora Ring 93 page views
• Results from Wednesday's forum on overcoming division 69 page views
• New England Story - Stockton Beach 47 page views
• Wednesday Forum: improving public transport 43 page views
• Belshaw's World - not such a lonely planet in a cafe full of cobbers 39 page views
• Round the New England blogging traps 20 - potpourri 37 page views
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - South of My Days 32 page views

Interesting that the Wednesday Forums are scoring in the top group. These are always a bit of a hit and miss affair in terms of responses.

Excluding search engine traffic, the most referrals came from:

• http://belshaw.blogspot.com/ 23 visitors
• Facebook 18 visitors
• http://bayjournal.com.au/joomla/bayjournal/environment/2632-point-of-view-is-moreton-bay-getting-any-better.html 16 visitors. I couldn't work out why I was getting visits here until I found a link in comments to this post: Death of New England Writer Eric Rolls (1923-2007)
• http://ninglundecember.wordpress.com/2008/03/28/australian-poem-2008-series-10-peter-skrzynecki-summer-in-the-country-2005/ 8 visitors
• http://regionallivingaustralia.blogspot.com/ 4 visitors

I was a bit surprised this time at the absence of Twitter feeds.

The most popular key words were:

• old trams newcastle 10
• mckechnie 3
• photos historic inverell 3
• south of my days analysis 3
• south of my days judith wright 3
• why should new england become its own state of australia 3
• aboriginal map queensland 2
• bora ring by judith wright 2
• charles howard hinton 2
• counting in sevens poem judith wright 2

Blog performance September 2010

The graphic shows blog traffic over the year ending September 2010. Yellow visits, yellow plus red page views. After the big traffic increase in August, September numbers were down, in part I think because I was away and could not post.

The ten most popular posts over September were:

• Wednesday Forum: the regional development deal 119 page views
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - Bora Ring 98 page views
• Round the New England blogging traps 18 - mainly political 76 page views
• Wednesday Forum: reforming the Federation 76 page views
• New England Story - Stockton Beach 70 page views
• Wednesday Forum: New England's greatest needs 69 page views
• Margaret Olley's New England connection 62 page views
• Fossicking in New England 50 page views
• UNE Passings - death of Rob Robertson-Cuninghame 49 page views
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - South of My Days 49 page views

Blog visits take off

I will bring up the next Wednesday forum later today. For the moment, I just want to look at the blog stats for August.

The graphic shows visits (yellow) and page views (yellow plus red) to end August. Both have been on an upward trend since the start of the year. However, the jump in August was quite remarkable!

Turning now to the most popular posts, the top ten over August were:

•  Margaret Olley's New England connection 164 page views
•  The Poetry of Judith Wright - Bora Ring 154 page views
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - South of My Days 116 page views
• New England Story - the making of Captain Thunderbolt 71 page views
• New England Story - Stockton Beach 66 page views
• New England's Kamilaroi people - web search August 08 62 page views
• Elections, Aborigines & the need for change 59 page views
• Armidale Kempsey Road Bullock Drays 1920s 51 page views
• Hunter Valley 1st New State lunch 51 page views
• Coalition wipe-out in the North? 50 page views

The post numbers actually measure those who came in via search engines or links. In addition, there are regular visitors who come direct to the blog. My stats here do not allow proper tracking, but average daily returns appear to be about twelve.

Blog stats, reader interests July 10

Sorry for the delay in posting. I have been tied up on other things.

The graphic shows visits (yellow) plus page views (yellow plus red) to this blog for the year ending July 10. After a steady increase in traffic, July was down a bit.

Excluding the front page ( I do not have stats for this), the most popular posts in July were:

• The Poetry of Judith Wright - Bora Ring (100 page views)
• Margaret Olley's New England connection (60 page views)
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - South of My Days (55 page views)
• The Power of Imagination (45 page views)
• New England's Kamilaroi people - web search August 08 (40 page views)
• Hunter Valley - Minimbah House (39 page views)
• New England Story - Stockton Beach (36 page views)
• Fossicking in New England (32 page views)
• Belshaw's World - round holes, square pegs and a region cruelled (32 page views).

New England Australia - most popular posts 8

Time for another look at what is popular on this blog. I try to do this regularly because my stats package is limited to the last 100 visits. However, I got sidetracked and it is months since my last review!

With 15 visits, the most popular post has been  Margaret Olley's New England connection, followed on 11 by The Poetry of Judith Wright - South of My Days. The posts about Judith are always popular, but I have been wondering about the hits on Margaret Olley; this has been a new trend.

With 6 visits, Round the New England blogging traps 10- a miscellany came in number three.

Two posts followed, each with 4 visits: Armidale-Kempsey Road - pretty but difficult and Fossicking in New England. The fossicking posts always get hits, but the interest in the Armidale-Kempsey road is new.

Then came four posts, each with three visits:

• Secrets of New England - along the Fossickers Way Day Two
• the monthly archive for April 2007
• Peter Allen, Armidale and Claire and Eileen Napier - an attack of nostalgia
• New England Story - Stockton Beach 

Looking at this group, no less than five were included in the top group last time.

New England Australia - most popular posts 7

Time for another look at what is popular on this blog. I try to do this regularly because my stats package is limited to the last 100 visits. However, it is over six weeks since my last review.

With 19 visits, The Poetry of Judith Wright - South of My Days was first by a country mile. Then came a group of four posts. In descending order:

• Fossicking in New England
• New England Story - Stockton Beach
• Australia's latest population statistics 2 - the macro numbers
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - Bora Ring

This was followed by four posts with three visits each:

• Secrets of New England - along the Fossickers Way Day Two
• Death of New England Writer Eric Rolls (1923-2007)
• Peter Allen, Armidale and Claire and Eileen Napier - an attack of nostalgia
• University of New England's Mary White College celebrates 50 years

Then came no less than six posts with two visits each:

• New England Australia - a few inland pubs and clubs
• TAS (The Armidale School) Band - 1901
• Judith Wright's "For a Pastoral Family" - and "Skins"
• Northern Tablelands-North West: Big Sky events summer calendar December 2008 - February 2009
• New NSW Population Projections 2006-2036 - New England's projected position
• Sons of Mathew 2 - Charles Chauvel (1897-1959)

In all, a varied mix.

New England Australia - most popular posts 6

Time for another look at what is popular on this blog. I try to do this regularly because my stats package is limited to the last 100 visits.

The most popular posts in the last 100 visits have been:

• Fossicking in New England came first by a considerable margin, again retaining its position in the top group.
• TAS Old Boy Michael Fussell killed in Afghanistan , first last time by a considerable margin, is still attracting visitors.
• Then after a gap came Death of New England Writer Eric Rolls (1923-2007).

These three were followed by three equal posts:

• Northern Tablelands-North West: Big Sky events summer calendar December 2008 - February 2009
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - South of My Days
• Happy Christmas to all New Englanders wherever you may be

Then came no less than eight equal posts:

• The Economic Basis of Traditional Aboriginal Life in New England. I really must finish this post!
• The blog archive for June 2007
• UNE Passings - deaths of Dr David Evans, Professor Rod Gerber
• New England Tablelands-North West Events Calendar Autumn 2008. Just a little ou of date now!
• Hugh Frewen's "Imogene - an odyssey"
• Federal Hotel Bellingen - another example of North Coast architecture. This post is one of a number beginning the process of exploring New England's different architectural styles.
• L J Hill's great Namoi Mud album. My family has promised me a copy of this as a present!
• New NSW Population Projections 2006-2036 - what do they mean? is as the name says.

Looking at the stats, the thing that pleases me most is that the blog is slowly gathering a degree of traction.

New England Australia - most popular posts 5

Another month since I looked at what is popular on this blog. The most popular posts in the last 100 visits have been:

• TAS Old Boy Michael Fussell killed in Afghanistan came first by a very significant margin, over three times more visits than the next highest post.
• Tamworth Floods November 2008 came second. Looking at visitors on a rolling basis as I do, it is clear that this post attracted considerable traffic. People like to know about major local events not fully captured by the city media.
• End of Historic Toorale Station came third, not a bad result for a very recent post.
• This was followed by New England's Aboriginal Languages - a map, a post that scores consistently in the top group. The post is no more than a map. Given that it continues to score, I gave added a note to my forward plan to update it with some additional links.

A number of posts followed this top group with round the same number of hits:

• Fossicking in New England has been in the top group before, so continues to attract a specialist interest.
• Armidale Demonstration School Year 5 1955
• Death of New England Writer Eric Rolls (1923-2007)
• Joint University of Newcastle, University of New England medical program starts
• New England poet Peter Skrzynecki's Summer in the Country
• Closure of the Inverell Supercoat Petcare facility - 168 jobs gone

New England Australia - most popular posts 4

It is now well over a month since I looked at what is popular on this blog. The six most popular posts in the last 100 visits have been:

• New England's Aboriginal Languages - a map. This post consistently ranks in the top group. Sometimes I get very depressed about writing on indigenous issues. Yet when I look at reader interests there is a clear desire to find out more about New England's indigenous peoples.
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - Bora Ring came in at number two. This is one of my favourite posts.
•  Secrets of New England - along the Fossickers Way Day Two came in at equal third. This one covers the journey from Scone to Nundle.
• The archive for June 2007 was also equal third. I have no idea which of the 13 posts in that month attracted interest.
• Also on number three were Fossicking in New England and Australia's latest population statistics 2 - the macro numbers.

New England Australia - most popular posts 3

That time again when I look at what is popular on this blog. The most popular posts in the last 100 visits have been:

• New England's Aboriginal Languages - a map by a considerable margin
• Fossicking in New England
• Secrets of New England - along the Fossickers Way Day Two. So fossicking is still popular.
• UNE Passings - deaths of Dr David Evans, Professor Rod Gerber
• Peter Allen, Armidale and Claire and Eileen Napier - an attack of nostalgia. A Peter Allen festival is coming up in Armidale in the new year. See Northern Tablelands-North West: Big Sky events summer calendar December 2008 - February 2009 for more details.
• The blog archive for June 2008.
• New England Stories - the Hinton Bequest. Crikey, another post that I have to finish.
• Judith Wright's "For a Pastoral Family" - and "Skins"
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - South of My Days

New England Australia - most popular posts 2

Looking at the last 100 visitors, the most popular posts on this blog have been:

• New Ministry in NSW (by a substantial margin)
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - South of My Days
• The Poetry of Judith Wright - Bora Ring (third equal)
• New England's Aboriginal Languages - a map (third equal)
• Southern Cross University - Bundjalung Nation Mapping (fourth equal)
• Judith Wright's "For a Pastoral Family" - and "Skins" (fourth equal)
• The archive for May 2007 (fourth equal)
• UNE Passings - deaths of Dr David Evans, Professor Rod Gerber (fourth equal)
• University of New England - entry page to blog posts (fourth equal)
• New England New State Movement - consolidated posts linked to the fight for New England self government (fourth equal)

Comparing this list to the most popular posts of a month ago, two of the Judith Wright posts were there then (South of My Days, For a Pastoral Family) as was New England's Aboriginal Languages.

New England Australia - most popular posts 1

Looking at the last 100 visitors, the most popular posts on this blog have been:

• The Poetry of Judith Wright - South of My Days (by a large margin)
• Big Sky Country Events July-August 2008
• New England's Aboriginal Languages - a map
• Judith Wright's "For a Pastoral Family" - and "Skins"
• June 07 posts (archive) (fifth equal)
• Fossicking in New England (fifth equal)