Posted on by Dunc

Club Jade’s stats were growing throughout 2012

2012stats

With things being so busy lately, I admit I’ve been dragging my feet on doing this post. However, the news is good. No, we didn’t have any overwhelming Vin Diesel incidents, but the numbers came out comparable to 2011 – 459,317 pageviews and 299,400 visits. It’s slightly less, but if you discount the extra boost that Vin’s Redditing gave us, it still shows real growth. Our daily average is 1258 pageviews and 820 visits a day.

Our biggest day was October 31, the day after the Disney sale was announced, with 3961 pageviews and 2232 visits.

Below the cut are our most-visited posts, our biggest referrals, and the top commenters of 2012.

The countdown
Here are the top twenty posts of 2012:

  1. Readers have no love for the catsuit, either; First look at Mara in the Essential Reader’s Companion. (by Dunc; 3,770 pageviews/3,309 visitors) The first catsuit post did well, too – you’ll see that later – but this one takes the cake, in no small part due to us being able to debut Darren Tan’s Essential Reader’s Companion piece of Mara fighting a Yuuzhan Vong. Big thanks go to Del Rey’s Erich Schoeneweiss for sending us the artwork – and linking it on the Star Wars Books Facebook page. Also noteworthy: Thanks to the reaction here, Tan went above and beyond to make sure that the finished artwork in the book has a corrected lightsaber hilt!
  2. Star Wars toys return to McDonalds’ Happy Meal this Friday… As ‘boy toys’ (By Eliz: 3,565/3,149.) The most popular of us getting our feminist – though, thankfully, not the most contentious!
  3. LEGO Star Wars returns to Cartoon Network with The Empire Strikes Out on 9/26. (By James: 3,272/3,031.) People really like the LEGO specials, man.
  4. Convention tip #12: Photographing fans in costumes. (By James; 2,268/2,160.) Defintly the MVP of our pre-Celebration convention tips series, James’ great guide got a lot of link-love around fandom.
  5. The (completely unofficial) Star Wars style guide: Terms every fan should know how to use correctly. (By Dunc; 2,151/1,966.) Because even the Associated Press doesn’t hyphenate R2-D2 correctly.
  6. Celebration VI: The Clone Wars: Young Jedi. (By James; 2,139/1,899.) James’ take on the preview of The Clone Wars arc also made the rounds.
  7. Why do we want more women highlighted in the Expanded Universe? (By Dunc; 2,124/1,381.) Our most-commented post ever. I think.
  8. Bonnie Burton laid off from Lucasfilm. (By Dunc; 2,085/1,913.) Fandom, shocked. StarWars.com’s social media presence hasn’t been the same since.
  9. A brief history of Mara Jade’s catsuit – and why I’m sick of it. (By Dunc; 1,974/1,528.) Part history lesson, part reality check, part rant.
  10. Unabridged Dark Force Rising and The Last Command audiobooks coming in June. (By Dunc; 1,636/1,386) We still get a lot of hits from Google looking for information about further anniversary editions of the Thrawn trilogy – And the 2011 post about Zahn’s comments on Dark Force Rising has comparable numbers.
  11. Unlearn what you have learned: Will the Expanded Universe survive new Star Wars movies? Should it? (By Dunc; 1,474/1,301.) This day-after look at the future of the EU in light of the new movies was the big hit-etting on our biggest day of 2012. I have no doubt I’ll be writing a lot more variations on this theme going forward.
  12. New round of Star Wars fabrics spotted. (By Dunc; 1,427/1,337) We had a several posts on fabric. You dig it.
  13. Mara Jade Skywalker is Hasbro’s 2011 Fan Choice. Yay? (By Dunc; 1,329/1,050) Catsuit.
  14. Celebration VI: Del Rey annouces Jaina Solo trilogy, new original trilogy series. (By Dunc; 1,250/1,131) I skipped the Detours panel to write this. I guess that was a solid choice after all.
  15. Another rumor: Episode VII more than 50 years after Return of the Jedi?. (By Dunc; 1,177/1,083.) With at least 5 more films confirmed, the rumors are flowing hot and heavy, and they’re not going to be going away anytime soon.
  16. Her Universe teases Princess Leia hoodie. (By Dunc; 1,112/983.) Everyone loves the hoodie. Everyone.
  17. EXCLUSIVE: First look at Celebration VI programming. (By Dunc and the Stooge; 1,068/916) April Fools!
  18. Syndicated The Clone Wars airing in chronological order (By James; 1,019/876.) No, we can’t tell you what channel it’s on in your market.
  19. Disney buys Lucasfilm, plans sequel trilogy to start in 2015. (By Dunc and Eliz; 997/790) Biggest news… Only #19? Well.
  20. It’s time to sell me on Jaina Solo. (By Dunc; 967/873) Oh, Jaina. What will happen to you now?

Also doing well are the usual suspects; The book release schedule (14,581/9,576) remains our biggest hit-getter outside the homepage and the Jedi Pick Up Lines (5,361/5,118) continue their Google-driven domination. Our most popular tag was Fate of the Jedi (2,276/1,626,) and the civility post (2,024/1,857) continued to get a lot of love as well.

Referrals
But where do the hits come from? Mostly Google, via searches and their RSS reader. But here are the rest:

  1. Facebook
  2. Twitter
  3. Wookieepedia
  4. StarWars.com and the Star Wars Blog
  5. Tumblr
  6. Tosche Station
  7. Reddit (Still!)
  8. EUCantina
  9. Roqoo Depot
  10. TFN’s Jedi Council boards
  11. Jedi News

All these numbers are generated via Google Analytics, but thanks to a new feature from WordPress, I can highlight something new…

Our top 5 commenters: JawaJames, Aaron, Paula, Stooge, and Doyle!

16 Replies to “Club Jade’s stats were growing throughout 2012”

  3. Two posts that featured art from the Essential Reader’s Companion topped my list for most hits this year. So interesting to see how it fell that way for ClubJade too.

  4. In the last 6 months or so, Club Jade is where I go for SW news. Streamlined design, sometimes sassy, it’s my quick SW fix for the day.

  11. Tricia: The Star Wars Books Facebook page probably has quite a bit to do with that…

    Nanook: I don’t usually look at those, so it’s hard to say what’s unusual.

    Most visitors came from the U.S., followed by the U.K., Canada, Germany, Australia, Poland, France, Mexico, Italy and Russia.

    I thought maybe Germany being so high was due to us being quick with the Celebration Europe news out of CVI, but in 2011 the lineup was much the same. Except after Poland it went Mexico, France, the Netherlands and Denmark.

    Is there a specific country you’d like me to look up?

    Oh, Stooge. ;)

  12. Speaking as a German: You’re my No. 1 for my “daily dose of Star Wars“ (yes, heard that right, out-of-date website with the three letters :P), and it seems I’m not the only one in Germany who feels that way. :-)
    Came for the Star Wars, stayed for the snark. :-D

  14. Thanks!

    I’ve been wondering how is it I Star Wars gets so much love in my country (Israel) yet no one is aware about Club Jade, which is, as Aaron said, No.1 daily dose supplier of SW :)

  15. Israel came in #30 with 445 visits in 2012, and #34 with 544 in 2011. We had a lot more international traffic overall in 2011 – maybe due to the Reddit thing?

    We’re a niche site, really – which is fine by me! I’ve done the mega-fansite thing before, and… No thanks.

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