In the right-hand sidebar there are two lists of TheSupercargo.com’s most popular posts. (If you are reading this on a computer or a tablet. If you’re reading on a phone you’ll have to scroll down.) During 2022 the list showed the five posts published in 2021 that attracted most interest. Below was another list with the top of the pops five posts published before 2021. Here we are now, at the end/beginning of another year so it’s time to update both. To do that I need to make a long-list of the most popular posts, which you’ll find at the foot of this page.
But, you may be asking yourself, how does he know what are his most popular posts? The short answer to that is Google Analytics. And for more on this subject I direct you to last year’s Most Popular Posts at TheSupercargo in 2021.
Statistics
According to Google, TheSupercargo received 9881 visitors during 2022. (This compares with 7146 visitors in 2021.) Maybe I’d have attracted even more if I’d managed to keep up my weekly publishing schedule all the way to the end of the year, but that didn’t happen. As I wrote in my Blogging Plan for 2023, though I published 38 posts up to September, I only managed one a month the last three months of the year.
So I only managed to publish 41 posts last year. Still, using Google’s statistics I find 37 of the 41 were opened by 374 visitors who spent an average of about 4 minutes with each one. Which isn’t bad. In fact, if you squint at it you can even see it’s an improvement on last year’s stats. In 2021, only 20 of posts of the 50 I published were opened by 322 visitors who spent an average of about 4½ minutes with each one.
Love and the NHS, plus
The most popular post from 2022, published in 2022, is my review of Many Different Kinds of Love, Michael Rosen‘s poetic account of his suffering under Covid and the care he received from the National Health Service that put him back on his feet. People have opened it roughly 27 times since I published it, and on average they spent 5 minutes reading it.
The second placed post is my Adventures in Poetry account of Writing a Wreath poem from February. That received 23 unique page views. Visitors spent an average of no less than 6¾ minutes each with the page open.
In third place is my 2021 writing resolutions post, Bruce and the Spider from January. Ninteen visitors spent 5½ minutes each on the post. Not bad.
The two remaining posts in the sidebar are close runners with Bruce. Impressions from the SWF22 (August) was opened by 18 visitors who also each spent 5½ minutes reading it. And another episode of my account of visiting Ghana, Return to Tema: The Search for House and School tied with Bruce on 19 visitors, but each spent just 4¼ minutes on it.
Older posts from before 2022
Among the older posts, as last year, are a few that continue to attract readers year after year. The Brussels Parakeets and Brussels Book Boxes posts, the articles about the ethics of Don McCurry’s photography and the Gothenburg Disco Fire, which were all in the sidebar last year. These still score high in terms of visitors. But I’m pleased to say that some of my newer posts are beating them. Not so much in terms of numbers of visitors, maybe, as in terms of the length of time the visitors spend on the post.
This year I’ve also invoked my editorial privilege to boost some of these newer posts up a little in the sidebar. (So I don’t have to share the Brussels Pissing Contest there again. Even though it received 90 visitors in 2022, I’m pretty sure that’s because of one key word in the title rather than for any of its other virtues.)
In all, the top 10 posts received 634 unique visitors who stayed for an average of an astounding 20 minutes each.
Liminal Places, Jana Kippo and Jamestown
The top post this year is my reading diary from December 2021, Liminal Places. Key words here are magical realism, The Midnight Library, and Piranesi. This was viewed 92 times in 2022 by visitors who spent an average of 14 minutes (!) reading it.
The second most popular post, from May 2021, Thinking How to Translate Jana Kippo, was opened 69 times. Visitors spent an average of 11½ minutes on it.
The third placed post is a different episode from my account of visiting Ghana, the visit to Jamestown in Accra (published in September 2020). That was viewed 67 times for 4½ minutes each time.
TheSupercargo’s Most Popular Posts in 2022
Posts published in 2022
Posts published before 2022
