According to my Blogger 'hits' stats, Mike Carcel (A-Z of Fetish Artists posting) remains my all-time most visited article(thus giving me my annual challenge of finding an uncontroversial sample picture by him - see below)
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| Mike Carcel - Caged |
The caged man is an appealing idea that's quite hard to make into a good picture, Mike has got some good ingredients here, the small cage size, made of wood and suspended off the ground. I always think though that tying up a man who is already in a cage is a bit unnecessary - although this particular cage doesn't actually have a top and there's open access at the front. It looks to be more of a 'picture frame' for prisoner humiliation. Note the well-disguised noose.
The posts in the table below are the 20 most viewed on this blog. Titles in the list link to the original posts. Please tell me if you have difficulty with any links
The "Top 20 Posts for 2016"had some surprises but the all time top 20 saw only small changes in 2016. Unsurprisingly (given it's existing lead) my Mike Carcel A-Z articlekept it's spot at the top . Priapus of Milet-1 in second place closed the gap but not by much. These two articles continued to pull away from the rest at double the hit rate of the nearest challengers, although Mike 'only' scored 3034 this year compared with 3950 last. The Priapus article scored 3452 compared with 2716 in 2015, closing the gap by about 10%.
The rest of the posts are the same as last year apart from the A-Z article on Cavelo which, following my revision last year, burst into the top 20 at number 8, beating every other post for number of hits received in the year (4217). It's arrival pushed the Shaving Fantasy article (19last year) out of the top 20.
3 articles scored significantly more than their neighbours on the list enabling them to improve their position. Thus Michael Mitchell escaped the drop rising to 19from 20 position and Sean Platter was another notable riser from 16to 14position ('demonic sex' is a frequently used search term at this blog!). The A-Z article on Leo also continued it's steady rise, entering the top 10. Most other articles recorded increases consistent with their position on the list, although you can see there are a couple of ‘falterers’ drifting downwards, notably My Initiation whose popularity in previous years baffled me since it is based on an image widely published on the Internet. The continuing popularity of my very brief note on Herediais equally surprising to me, perhaps reflecting a scarcity of material about him on the net.
For comparison my 'Index of Artists' page reached 7376 hits during the year (up from 723) which would have earned No 6spot in this ranking if I counted it as a post. I am very pleased that visitors are finding it useful. It shows the level of interest in artists who work in our field.
Cavelo's arrival gives us a representative of 2008 for the first time in the top 20, but there are no posts in the list later than 2012. I had expected Tagame to break into the list this year but A-Z of Fetish Artists - Tagame (Part 1) from 2014 is stuck at 23 just behind A-Z on Kalabro (2009) which at 22 has risen from 26 and is knocking on the door of the top 20, much to my delight. The leading representative from 2013 is my follow-up article on Mike Carcelwhich is at No 29 and still making gradual progress. The leading post from 2016 (WoodunArt) enters the list at 66. That's already just ahead of The Art of Eddie Chin (top in 2015) which is at 67 (up from 85).
The total hits method of assessing popularity is obviously biased towards older articles and so (being a geek!) I also had a look at the total hits per year since publication - see table below. In this list, multi-part articles are represented by the highest scoring individual post.
Top 10 Articles based on annualised hit rate
| Article | Published | Hits per year | Position (& last year) | 'Total Hits' position |
2016 | 3271 | 1 (-) | 66 | |
2010 | 2645 | 2 (1) | 1 | |
2012 | 2634 | 3 (2) | 2 | |
2010 | 1524 | 4 (4) | 3 | |
2015 | 1346 | 5 (-) | 72 | |
2012 | 1209 | 6 (5) | 7 | |
2009 | 1183 | 7 (9) | 4 | |
2014 | 1168 | 8 (3) | 23 | |
2009 | 1099 | 9 (8) | 5 | |
2010 | 989 | 10 (-) | 6 |
Using this criterion WoodunArt bags the top spot and my own Christmas Criminal sneaks in at No 5 both articles taking advantage of the 'newly published' effect (just as Eddie Chin claimed No 5 in 2015). They can both be expected to decline next year but I'm happy to bask in my own little moment of fame!
Tagame is the only other 'outsider' to disturb the usual suspects from the total hits list, but he drops 5 places. Interestingly he is represented by Part 1 of my set of articles this year instead of Part 3 which was the most visited part last year. This probably reflects new readers following my guidance to start with the first article and that switch may also explain his unexpected stagnation this year in the main table.
The next 3 articles after these 10 are Bill Ward, Tom of Finland - 3 and Baronwith Sean Platter and the great Teddy of Paris not far behind. So whilst this method of ranking does excessively benefit more recent, fresher works it also seems to acknowledge the true masters. Unfortunately the oldest A-Z entries, notably letters A-G which were much sketchier and originally had censored images are not well represented. These were not up to the standard of the articles from 'M' onwards. I have replaced most of the adulterated pictures now but my plans to revise more of these articles this year did not come to fruition, due to various problems including a catastrophic computer crash. The 'Ulf Retrospective' came to an abrupt halt for the same reasons. However I have consolidated the Etienne articles to try and give him the credit he is due (his top article is currently at 68 on the total hit list).
The articles I post to this blog are very much based on my own interests and fancies. My readers preferences doesn't always match my own (where are Les, JoeT and Link?). Nevertheless it's gratifying to see this interest in the great artists who often have a fairly low visibility on the web. I am hoping to finish the remaining A-Z letters in 2017 and take in some more CGI greats.
Thanks to all of you for your continuing interest and support.