My Most Popular Blog Post Ever

I’ve been blogging since 2008, on WordPress, which provides a lot of interesting data. WordPress says I’ve done 645 posts and have had 224,000 visits, last year from 162 different countries. I have 3,582 subscribed followers (though many apparently signed up just to plug their own blogs).

What I find particularly interesting is which blog posts attracted the most hits. This must largely result from search terms people google. In some cases, it seems obvious why a post gets a lot of traffic – for example, the one titled, “Is consumerism bad?” In other cases it’s a mystery to me. (Like the one on Amartya Sen. Who?) Meanwhile, I’ll sometimes post something I feel is really interesting and should draw a lot of traffic, but . . . pfft, nothing. It seems that titles with question marks do well (see below).

So anyway, here, according to WordPress data, is my “top ten” list of most visited blog posts, in ascending order of popularity. Note, there is some bias in favor of older items which have simply had more time to accumulate hits, so more recent ones haven’t yet made the list. However, the rankings for the top ten have actually stayed the same at least since the beginning of this year. (You can click on each title to see the original post):

10. The marshmallow test

9. Unintelligent Design – Why evolution explains the human body and “intelligent design” does not.

8. Eckhart Tolle: The future is now

7. Amartya Sen: Development as Freedom

6. Why is there something rather than nothing?

5. Utilitarianism: Is killing one to save five moral?

4. Is consumerism bad?

3. Reason versus emotion?

2. Why religion and logic don’t mix.

And, finally, my most popular post ever, from 2009, which still continues to rack up hits and consistently maintains its top spot:

1. The Enlightenment and its critics

This one definitely falls in the mystery category. I am baffled by its popularity; would never have guessed this would get much attention, let alone the number one slot. Yet, year in and year out, “The Enlightenment and its critics” continues to lead the pack, with more visits than any other post.

Maybe I said something there more profound than I realized. Perhaps it’s worth a look!