Above, art by this year's winner for the second year running, IFNB.
Drained but victorious contestants pose with their enormous trophies and their cups.
There will be a third IFNB post soon, watch out for it.
~
According to my Blogger 'hit stats', out of all the mitchmen articles published to date,
those registering the most total hits since publication are as shown below.
Table 1 mitchmen Articles With Most Hits Since Publication to end 2023
Posn (last yr) | Title of Post (& link) | Year of Pub'n | Cum Hits | Hits in 2023 |
1 (1) | | 2018 | 51,757 | 7187 |
2 (2) | | 2017
| 51,385 | 7506 |
3 (3) | | 2012 | 44,375 | 2604 |
4 (4) | | 2008
| 36,621 | 2316 |
5 (5) | | 2010 | 34,495 | 1437 |
6 (6) | | 2018 | 24,857 | 1466 |
7 (8)
| | 2018 | 23,187 | 1145 |
8 (7) | | 2009 | 22,957 | 824 |
9 (9) | | 2016 | 21,657 | 786 |
10 (10) | | 2010
| 19,701 | 624 |
11 (11) | | 2009
| 19,328 | 811 |
12 (14) | | 2020 | 15,865 | 2551 |
13 (20) | | 2008 | 15,409 | 4332 |
14 (12) | | 2010 | 14,752 | 718 |
15 (16) | | 2019 | 14,393 | 1502 |
16 (13) | | 2009 | 13,889 | 414 |
17 (15) | | 2015 | 13,781 | 761 |
18 (17) | | 2018 | 13,048 | 1420 |
19 (18) | | 2009 | 12,313 | 872 |
20 (19) | | 2009 | 12,129 | 729 |
Stats compiled 1/1/24
This year it was pretty much 'as you were' in the all-time table of hits. At the top of the table, Milking Factories-1 closed the gap behind IFNB after surrendering No 1 position to it in 2022 and at the present rate it will be back to neck and neck this time next year. As in 2022 these two are fast pulling away from the rest of the pack, now a long way behind them. Related posts, Milking Factories 3 & 4 also consolidated their places in the top 20 table. The follow up article on IFNB, '
IFNB Revisited' however is still way behind this group at No 80, but it recorded a creditable score of 1,587 in 2023 and rose 16 places.
There were no new entries at all to the top 20 this year and only one change in the top 11 positions with Homoeros Gallery Guide (now 7th) swapping places with Jotto (now 8th). This rise was despite the Homoeros post putting in a faltering performance compared with previous years (after registering a 75% fall in hits). Homoeros' other top 20 article - 'The Art of the Cross' - dropped back to 18th but is still scoring well and has articles in it's sights for overtaking.
The chasing pack are headed up by 3 former Number ones. Priapus of Milet is secure in 3rd place but the long standing rivalry between Cavallo (4th) and Mike Carcel (5th) is not yet over, Mike slipped further behind in 2023 but the gap is still only one year's worth of present hit rates. There's another big gap behind the top 5 who are unlikely to be disturbed for a while.
The meteoric rise of Amalaric's - 'A Slave To Passion' moderated in 2023, rising only 2 places to 12th place but with a top 5 hit rate nevertheless. He's now coming up against some formidable historic totals which will take some chipping away. He's also being chased hard by Brick, well placed to overtake him in 13th position. Brick had the best rise in the table, 7 places, interest in him having been revived by a marvellous stream of new work posted at
MetalbondNYC. My A-Z article covers his earlier work.
Other classic artists Malex, Franco, Martin of Holland, The Hun, Kalabro and Julius were all shuffled down by the newcomers and though they didn't have vintage years they mostly posted hit counts that would have rivalled the winner of the
2023 'new articles' table (MPP1).
The entry level to this all-time top 20 is now 12129 about 1,000 more than last year. That increase alone exceeded all the scores of the 2023 new posts and the cumulative total of IFNB is now fifty times the total of the 2023 winning new post.
The leading outsider threatening the present residents for next year is the same as last year - The Art of BrosFate – 3 at 22 (up 2 places). Further down,
Enslavement Art by Planet Gay jumped 165 places but there are no obvious, immediate challengers for the top 20 places.
The mitchmen 'Index of Artists' page reached 87,590 hits at the end of 2023, a 13% rise (compared with 19% last time). It would have earned top spot in this ranking if I counted it as a post.
~
mitchmen blog was first published in 2008 and ten of the sixteen years since then are now represented in this survey, the missing years between 2008 and 2022 are shown below
Average hit rates
The total cumulative hits method used for the all-time popularity table above is biased towards older articles which have had longer to accumulate their hits. However, the higher traffic counts in recent years have been eroding that advantage, enabling newer articles to contest the top positions. The table below based on average hits per year since publication, gives a more balanced view of long-term popularity.
In this list I have left out the 2023 posts because they don't even have a full year yet and their initial surge (if you'll pardon that expression) produces ridiculous hit rates that are unlikely to be sustained. They are covered by a table of their own (MPP1).
Table 2
Articles with the Highest Average Hits per year Since Publication
Article | Publicn year | Ave Hits per year | Position (& last year) | 'Total Hits' position |
| 2018 | 8898 | 1 (1) | 1 |
| 2017 | 7481 | 2 (2) | 2
|
| 2020
| 4731 | 3 (3) | 12
|
| Homoeros Gallery Guide | 2018 | 4592 | 4 (4) | 7
|
| Milking Factories - 3 | 2018 | 4432 | 5 (5)
| 6
|
| 2012 | 3790 | 6 (6) | 3
|
| 2016 | 3029 | 7 (9) | 9 |
| 2019 | 2902 | 8 (10) | 15 |
| The Art of BrosFate – 3 | 2020 | 2889 | 9 (8) | 22
|
| 2010 | 2536 | 10 (15) | 5
|
| 2020 | 2536 | 11 (12) | 29 |
| 2018 | 2430 | 12 (14) | 18 |
| 2021 | 2402 | 13 (7) | 77 |
| 2008 | 2345 | 14 (13) | 4 |
| 2020 | 2163 | 15 (16) | 52
|
| 2011 | 2010 | 16 (-) | 236 |
| 2021 | 1977 | 17 (11) | 125
|
| 2018
| 1943
| 18 (18) | 27 |
| 2022 | 1909 | 19 (-) | 194 |
| 2018 | 1862
| 20 (20) | 26
|
IFNB and Milking factories topped this table too, testament to their dominating popularity at the blog and here too they are way ahead of the chasing pack. All of the top 6 articles kept their positions but hit rates declined across the board.
Milking Factories occupied 4 places in the table, down 1 but still including No 2 which clung on to 20th position, despite 2 new entries at 16 (Enslavement Art by Planet Gay, which jumped 165 places) and 19 (Exciting new pictures by Brick). Milking Factories - 5 was the casualty from this group, falling to 23 (19). The other was Amalaric – 2 Ancient History down to 22 from 17. Amalaric's other articles in the table (at 3 and 15) held up well. The same was true of Homoeros whose 3 articles barely budged.
A notable riser was Mike Carcel up to 10 from 15, a remarkable reversal of recent trends, thanks to his hit rate holding up much better than it's rivals. Mike actually tied with Brosfate-1 for 10th place but I gave him the better position for his superior consistency.
There were two other big fallers. Art of Roa-1 with it's magnificent headline image (at 17, down 6) predictably got more sober scores this year after it's sparkling debut last time. 'Come and Get It!' was also down 6 places, a phenomenon that can be attributed to the launch of the new Royale Studio blog. This article is the only one in the table based on pure photography but IFNB and Amalaric represent the photo-manips.
The cut-off point for joining this 'hit rate' table dropped a little this year, from 2023 to 1862 hits per year. Two of the articles in the 2023 New Posts table beat that hit rate based on their short existence so far, Cockaphobia would have been 16th and Chen_X_Chen 19th if I had included them, but they probably won't keep that rate up for a full year. Older promising challengers just outside the table are Muscle Matt-1 and Black Prof
~
The articles I post to this blog are very much based on my own interests and fancies but the results of this survey do help me plan future offerings. My readers preferences doesn't always match my own (where are Les, JoeT and Link?). Nevertheless it's gratifying to see such interest in the great gay fetish artists who often have a fairly low visibility on the web.
Remember, this comparison is only made for entertainment, since I don't really know how accurate Google's stats are, they don't seem to add up to the overall hits at the blog and I suspect they don't count the activity of people who just browse through the blog roll.
Thanks to all of you for your continuing interest and support.
This annual set of articles is made up of 3 charts
MPP3 - Most Popular Post of All Time (i.e. cumulative performance)
that's this article!
Charts and reviews for earlier years can be accessed by clicking the 'MPP' label below
%20winners%20ifnb00144.jpg)