One Million Hits at American Power

Okay, I mentioned I'd write this post a couple of nights ago.

I racked up 1 million hits on this blog on December 1st. American Power launched October 7th, 2007, so it took just over two years to reach that milestone. Traffic really picked up in 2009. I owe a lot to Robert Stacy McCain's hit-building program, "How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog in Less Than a Year." A lot of his tricks work like a charm, but go easy on rules 4 and 5 (make some enemies and find some babes) -- like fast cars, bars, and guitars, fighting and women will be your ruin!

But seriously, I wrote about becoming a blogger earlier. See, "How to Become a Successful Conservative Blogger." Check William Jacobson's post as well, "Thanks a Million!" For encouragement and links, I owe too many bloggers to thank in a brief post. Of course, getting traffic at Instapundit certainly helps in reaching the milestone, so a big thanks to Glenn Reynolds. And both Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs and Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit have been tremendously influential. Also, Michelle Malkin has become an intellectual light for really effective and rigorous conservative blogging, and I'm thrilled to have met her last month. Plus, Rick Moran has been a great mentor at Pajamas Media. I'm also fortunate for cross-posting privileges at Right Wing News, so a warm thanks to John Hawkins (who also flows some massive traffic surges my way via Linkiest). Finally, Kevin Sullivan at RealClearPolitics is kind enough to link me at RCP fairly regularly. If I missed anyone, let me know and I can link your blog below, with thanks.

Everyone loves traffic, but blog rankings are also cool. I've been fortunate to get linked widely around the web, and I imagine breaking a story here and there has helped. I just recently started checking Technorati's page, which has undergone a makeover. I'm a top-40 blog there, And if you check the link you'll see the rankings are dynamic. I'm not sure of Technorati's algorithm, but American Power ranks above a number of blogs considered big players on the web. I don't put a lot of stress on this stuff, since high traffic blogs are more prestigious, as well as those with huge communities of commenters. Wikio's rankings are supposed to be more authoritative, in any case. American Power's been ranked at 52 for the last two months. I can't recall if I've broken into the top-50 at Wikio, but breaking the top-100 was big deal a year or so ago. Anyway, my guess is that I've about peaked at this point. I've done most of things I'm able to do with the blog being a second career. I expect the pace of blogging here to ease up next year (although I've said that before). Perhaps I'll post less frequently. It depends on how I feel. I'll be writing for sure, but I'm going to think about new directions -- perhaps focusing even more on independent reporting. Either way, the blog will be here. I'll say more about this on New Year's Day, when I plan to update my comments from last January: See, American Power in 2009.

Thanks to all my readers, some who've been around for some time, others more recently. Cartoon courtesy of the Jungle Hut, "All I want for Christmas..."