Five Years Old

What is it with bloggers 'answering' comments? I am a bit bemused by it. I read lots of blogs (though many I read on a rss feeder these days and only visit if I want to comment) and if I comment on a blog it's because I have found the post interesting or entertaining, however I do not pop back the next day to see if the blogger has thanked me for my visit, nor do I sign up to be emailed the other comments (who needs it?). So I don't make a point of doing the "hey, thanks for your comment x" thing here, though I always return visit people's blogs and often comment there thanking them. But then I have started agonising over whether it's something that visitors think is important and they get insulted if I fail to acknowledge their comment. So that brings me back round to the annual 'does it really matter?' and 'why am I doing this?' questions. Then I tell myself to stop waffling and just write the goddam post.

It's been a slow year with a mere 122 posts, the vast majority being reviews, though much more baking has also gone on this past year, a measly 153 comments but a staggering 107 followers. I am not going to mention the overall visitor stats as I am racing towards a major milestone sometime in the next month that will deserve a celebratory post. The most visited new posts from this year are both sewing posts from May: the shift dress and the peg bag each have over 600 visits. It is very gratifying when a google search brings my blog up on the first page, and if you are really in to increasing your traffic the advice would be to title your posts to coincide with questions that might be asked on the search engine. I have had loads of visits to my post about Kate Atkinson's Life After Life because I entitled it 'Darkness Falling' which seems to be the title of a popular series of zombie novels (maybe it even tempted a few readers to try something a little more challenging). 

So it's been five years and I'm still blogging; looking back at last year's anniversary post it has been a singularly uneventful year. As I commented to Creature last night, despite a couple of potential new roles at work and a couple of job interviews, my life is exactly the same as it was a year ago. Thanks for visiting and thanks for commenting, while I am mostly doing it for my own entertainment it is gratifying that other people find some interest too.