Blog Stats and Random Search Hits

I loved Rebecca’s and Annabel’s posts on their blog stats, and so have written a short one of my own!

My most popular posts, sadly, have nothing to do with the main purpose of this blog but are all related to the academic job market. My best-performing post of all time is Interviews, Part One: Junior Research Fellowships (JRFs) with a whopping 6559 views to date. I know that this post has been linked on a number of other blogs and academic careers resources.

If we exclude everything on academic careers, my top three posts of all time are:

1. Laura Rereading: ‘I belong to him’. (1041 views) This post unpicks the romantic relationships in L.M. Montgomery’s classic Emily of New Moon trilogy and argues that both of Emily’s principal romantic entanglements, with Dean Priest and Teddy Kent, can be seen as dangerously obsessive. A LOT of people find my blog by searching things like ‘teddy kent vs dean priest’ so this is obviously still a live issue!
2. ‘Because they could’. (925 views) My review of Naomi Alderman’s The Power sparked a lot of debate. It remains my only review that has received a comment from the author and I just discovered that it has been cited in an academic paper!
3. Unravelling. (491 views) I was really proud of this review of Alys Fowler’s memoir Hidden Nature, which meant a great deal to me personally, so I’m pleased to see that it has had a decent number of hits.

I also had a look at the search terms people use to find my blog and have compiled some favourites:

Most recent search term: why is fiction important

Most bizarre search term: dr log splitter

Most satisfying search term: childhood newcastle university laura tisdall

Most frequent search terms: junior research fellowship interview questions; not getting shortlisted for lectureships; #100daysofwriting

Search terms where the searcher was most likely to be disappointed: uplifting pix for my families; nightwaking sex.com; why I dont like the handmaids tale

If you look at the books people are interested in, there are a few that come up again and again:

• Golden Hill by Francis Spufford (usually people hunting for spoilers!)
• Brixton Hill by Lottie Moggach
• The Heart’s Invisible Furies by John Boyne
• Katy by Jacqueline Wilson
• The Demon Headmaster by Gillian Cross (including fab search terms such as ‘could the demon headmaster hypnotise a psychopath’)

What are your most popular blog posts? And has anyone used weird or brilliant search terms to find your blog?