There’s a statistics page on WordPress that lets me see all sorts of information on my blog entries. I get to see things like numbers, what countries readers are from, what people click on, and what search terms have led folks to the blog.
I took a look at my statistics for the year on January 1, and thought I’d share it with you all.
The big message I get from the statistics is that writing about barefooting is not the way to really draw in the readers. I don’t know if there are just too few of us or we’re just not interested in reading about it. (I’ll immediately reject the idea that I don’t have a huge volume of readers because of lousy writing because . . . because . . . well, just because.)
Regarding numbers of barefooters, the readership of my blog is quite a bit below the memberships of various barefooting organizations. Occasionally, though, a blog entry will pique somebody’s interest and drive up the numbers.
Anyways, here’s the list of my top 12 (by number of hits) blog entries this past year, along with a bit of commentary about each one.
1. Dual Survival: Dave Canterbury Apologizes.
As I said, if you want to really get readers, don’t write about barefooting. This blog entry had 7 times as many hits as the next most popular entry. It also had about 80 times the readers as a typical barefooting blog entry.
Obviously, it is barefoot-related, since Dual Survival stars intrepid barefooter Cody Lundin. But for season three, Dave Canterbury was replaced by Joe Teti, and when folks search for why that happened, it seems that they are directed to this blog entry.
My hope is that, while this is what draws them to the blog, they might stick around and see that going barefoot had a much wider appeal that just Cody Lundin.
There was a long gap between Season 2 (with Dave) and Season 3 (with Joe), so this entry addresses that. Again, it’s Dual Survival.
By the way, the number of hits for the 1st of the year was three times normal. Do you know why? Because the Discovery Channel had an all-day Dual Survival marathon. That’s what drives the traffic.
In at number 3 is yet another Dual Survival entry. This one is a bit more interesting, in my view, because it shows some of the internals of how they stage things. What I found most amusing in it is that they showed the map that Dave and Cody were supposedly working from — and according to their description of where they put in and took out from a river, they must have floated upstream. Clearly, the map was just a prop.
4. Vibram Transitioning → Bone Injury.
OK, finally a non-Dual Survival entry. However, it’s about shoes. Minimalist shoes, but shoes none-the-less. That’s what drives traffic, I guess.
On the other hand, I hope the readers of the entry learn a bit about how important direct feedback from the soles really is.
5. Adidas Sued Over Their Toe-Shoes.
And in 5th place, yet another entry about shoes. OK, it is one of the few places where folks can find a copy of the complaint and updates on the status of the lawsuit. (Current status: both parties are doing discovery which is supposed to be completed in April; there will be a hearing on whether to certify it as a class-action lawsuit on May 7.)
6. Dual Survival: Misty Mountain Drop.
Back to Dual Survival again. This was the last show of Season 3 (and actually had some more interesting map-work; and this time the map actually corresponded to where they were . . . mostly.) By the way, yes, there will be a Season 4; they’ve shot a fair number of episodes so far.
7. The Seri Boot.
Finally, a barefooting post! Actually, I’m pretty proud of this one, since it required me to dig up an incredibly obscure (and forgotten) journal article. But it really shows just how versatile bare feet are and how they have been used in environments that are way more hostile than I’d ever considered. As I wrote about in Baking a Seri Boot, this is something I tried out myself and it really does seem to do a nice job of increasing one’s barefooting abilities (and not just for heat).
A Seri Man
Let me also note one thing that does drive traffic to the blog. Sometimes readers will highlight one of the entries by sharing on facebook, or on their own blogs. That will often make the numbers of readers jump.
8. Trenchfoot (No, It’s Not What You’re Thinking).
I’m not sure why this one shows up so high, except that it was a reply to somebody else’s post. They weren’t aware that there was a device that would let you use a shovel barefoot.
9. Tom Sawyer: The Reader’s Digest Edition.
This version of Tom Sawyer is probably the most faithful (modern) American version—the boys are barefoot when they are supposed to be barefoot, as opposed to the Disney version (starring Jonathan Taylor Thomas).
Probably the most faithful version I’ve seen is the Russian version mentioned (and linked) in the comments of The Disneyfication of Tom Sawyer.
By the way, this is kind of sad, but I suspect one reason this one scores high is because one of the search terms I see popping up a fair bit is “boys skinnydipping”. (There’s a skinnydipping scene in the movie, just as in the book.)
To help wash that thought out of your brain, let me note that the Reader’s Digest version was a musical, and had a cute song in it, Freefootin’:
Take a listen.
10. What’s Up With Dual Survival?.
And in at number 10, yet another Dual Survival entry. Why do I even bother writing about barefooting?
11. Smiley: Barefoot Australian Boy.
Here’s a nice barefooting entry. Yay!
It’s about Smiley, a barefooted Australian boy.
In my original blog entry, I linked to some excerpts. However, it appears that there is now a full-length version available on youtube (at least until a copyright violation takedown occurs).
12. Nude Men—But Not Really [NSFW].
In this blog entry I noted how so many nudists still seem to wear shoes. They aren’t “barefoot from the neck down”, but in reality “clothed from the ankle down”. This is on the list because it was shared on a lot of nudist sites (and got me a fair bit of grief from them, too, as if I didn’t know what I was talking about). But in reality, many of the nudists who were upset just didn’t get it and just didn’t get just how strong and useful bare feet really are.
So that’s it for last year. Let’s see how things go for this one.
Ahcuah 
Is referral statistics also available? Besides search engines, there must be other sites linking to you.
Obviously Dual Survival is popular and you have fans of the series coming to your blog … I’d have to see any episode still.
Yes, I get referral statistics. Usually search engines or facebook are the main sources, though I also occasionally see something from The Barefoot Runners Society or Ken Bob’s site. It was from the referrals that I could tell that some nudists were made at me.
I can also tell when a blog posting is referenced on the SBL, since I’ll get a few hits from the yahoogroup group page. It’s often a surprisingly low number though—makes one wonder how much the members there really are into it. (Note: this was true even when I was writing for the SBL Blog. A fairly “interesting” topic would only generate about 5-10 hits from the SBL. [Or maybe I thought the topic was more interesting that it really was. 🙂 ])
> It’s often a surprisingly low number though
SBL members may be following you via RSS or some other mechanism. For example, I would never come to your blog via an SBL mailing list link.
You should be seeing my visits with theoldreader.com as the referring site.
I am not really a fan of any of these survival-type shows. I do follow a YouTube channel called “Alec in Wilderland” though. I was a little disappointed when he recommended wearing shoes even though he is often barefoot himself. Although geared to a young audience, I find it interesting and instructional.