It’s not been a bad year. It started in Merida, continued through an entertaining, if ultimately disappointing, World Cup. And finished with Christmas, as usual. And then there have been the cameras, all four of them. This year has really been about saving and planning for next year though.

But it’s as good a time as any to look through the blog statistics. See what really happened. The stats can quickly point to the ten most viewed posts. In order: Blog del Narco, which squeezed Mexican Chess, featured on WordPress’s Freshly Squeezed page, into second place. The Ultra Bridge – Panasonic’s FZ100, a camera which I did not in the end even buy. Christmas Wishes seems to be a title that works with search engines. Fuji HS10 Video Sample, followed by Fuji HS10 Low Light Photography. A camera I did buy and sometimes miss. Others are clearly interested. El Chicharito has his fans obviously. Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park is a popular dream, although there are times you wouldn’t want to be there. Scientology Mexico attracted a few Anons, and Bicenternario 2010, possibly my shortest post on the bicentenary, proved to be the most read. There is a lesson in there, perhaps.

I get visitors to my blog from a variety of sources. Search engines being the biggest contributer, and Google being the biggest of those. Visitors also come from other established websites and networks, including (in order of number of visitors sent) WordPress.com, Twitter, Lonely Planet, Networked Blogs, Facebook, The Guardian, Blogs Of Note (the irony – Blogger are still sending me visitors, having been chosen as a Blog of Note, more than 18 months after I abandoned Blogger) Ex-Pat Blogs, Blogs.com and EltWorld.

Bloggers send me visitors too. Steve Cotton as many as the rest put together. But I get plenty from elsewhere. Cancun Canuck, Bliss Blogging, Sparks, Burro Hall, MexicoCityDF, Wagamama, Small Fish in the Big Taco, Countdown to Mexico and MidWesternerInMexico who are now no longer in Mexico.

I get visitors for other blogs too I should point out. In my sidebar I share my favourite posts through Google Reader. I’m not a prolific commenter, but I do read plenty. The best individual posts and stories find their way into my sidebar. It’s a better way of sharing, I think. Speaking of Google, the ten most popular search engine terms that lead to my blog? Lamb, mexile, blog del narco, christmas wishes, albondigas mexicanas, el chicharito, the mexile, panasonic fz100, simpsons donut, scientology mexico.

And then there are the big numbers. This year saw nearly 70,000 visitors come by. An average of about 180 a day. My best day was February 10th with 1,270 visitors. The total number of visitors ever now stands at more than 90,000 – I only started publishing on WordPress.com in earnest in May of 2009. All posts older than that were imported from Blogger, which in turn were imported originally from my Opera blog.

If numbers are really important to you, by the by, go with Opera. You’ll quickly get a good Google Page Rank and visitors will flock in. My annual total there in year one measured in the hundreds of thousands. In fact my monthly totals were usually greater than my annual total on WordPress. So popular was that blog in fact, that I decided to whore it on PayPerPost, writing adverts on all sorts of dubious products and services, from Rolex watches to vaginal rejuvenation surgery.

I, most sincerely, learned so much. More than I ever needed or wanted to. But it paid. I must have raked in about $15,000 to $20,000 US dollars between November 2007 to mid 2009. Only a couple of thousand dollars since them. But that market is almost dead and I rarely bother these days. Ads that I used to get paid anything from $35 to $70 dollars for 100 words, now pay $3 for 200 words. Pft.

There are other ways to monitor a blog, and a person in general. I have a number of Google Alerts set up to send me links to anything containing the names mexile, garydenness and gary denness. I can see who is quoting my stuff, who is abusing it, and where my photos are showing up. They show up in allsorts of places.

The latest is a photo I took a long time ago of Father Christmas, now being used by AVG on their blog – see the image below. I also discovered a month or two back that there is a new Mexile. Someone has usurped my name and started a blog of a most adult nature for men of a certain persuasion! I won’t link to it…

That was my digital 2010. Here’s a toast to 2011. A Happy New Year to you all!