16 December 2009
daveslandslideblog is two years old today!
Posted by Dave Petley
Very kindly AGU decided to hold a birthday lunch to celebrate the second anniversary of daveslandslideblog (actually the geobloggers lunch, but who’s counting?). I started the blog two years ago as a bit of an experiment to see what would happen, and have really enjoyed putting it together (and I have learnt a huge amount too). During this time I have made 437 posts. I put a web counter on the site in early April 2008, since when the site has had >236,000 page requests from >125,000 visitors. In 2009 to date there have been visitors from 177 distinct countries. Unfortunately, like almost all blog sites Blogspot/Blogger is currently blocked in China, which is the world’s most landslide-prone country. This is a real regret, and may mean that I need to set up a satellite site on a dedicated website at some point.
The pattern of visitors through time is quite interesting too. I track this data on a daily basis (I am such a nerd!), and the long term graph looks like this (this is smoothed with a seven day filter):
The huge peak early on is the Wenchuan earthquake and then Tangjiashan. The subsequent peaks can all be traced to specific large landslide events that have attracted lots of page searches. The overall trend is strongly upwards through time, but is also very seasonal. The key factor appears to be university term/semester dates (especially in the US and Europe), with visitor numbers picking up when term/semester starts (see this autumn for example), and then declining towards the end of the semester/term. Finally, the recent drop off may look alarming, but is just part of the normal cycle – there were lots of landslides in the autumn this year, hence the big peak, which was inevitably followed by a decline, plus numbers have dropped off as the university semesters have finished.
So what is the future of the blog? For now I anticipate keeping it going, although at times it can be a struggle. I notice that the other landslide blog, the strangely-named Landslides under Microscope, appears to have ceased (last post in October), which is a shame. I don’t anticipate any major changes (and I am continuing to resist putting adverts onto the site), not least due to time constraints, but we’ll see. The most bizarre aspect of this has been the recognition over the last year that I am far better known for my blog than for my research – and I have really appreciated all of the positive comments that I have received from people I have met around the world.
Comments and feedback welcome – in particular, how can I make it better?
Happy Birthday! How to make it better? Never change a winning team.
BRAVO! DAVE, BRAVO!Happy aniversary from a very good fan in Peru.Better? No way!
Happy blogiversary! And thank you – your combination of science and human impacts has been the perfect information that I've needed to keep my interdisciplinary natural hazards class up-to-date. (In fact, some of those visits in May may have been from my students.)
Awesome … i don't comment here much, but this is a good time to say 'keep it up' … this is one of my favorite geology blogs.
Congratulations Dave! Your blog is an excellent resource, best of luck for the next two years!–Randy Post (GeoPrac.net)
Happy birthday to the blog! Yours is the only blog I follow on a regular basis, and I can only say keep up the good work. Your regular posts are what make it interesting to return again and again. Thanks for the service.
This is my first comment here but I'm a dedicated reader of your blog for about 1 year ago. I just have to say congratulations from Portugal Dave, and keep it up with your sharp analysis.
Congratulations, Dave! I really enjoy your blog and the expert commentary that you provide. Your blog is the "go to" place for coverage of landslides in the news. Keep up the great work!*I wish that there were more blogs like yours dedicated to expert and current coverage of other earth science topics*