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Tuesday, 3 January 2017

Mike Carcel still Most Popular 'mitchmen' post of all time - 2016 (MPP3)

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)

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



Posn
(last yr)
Title of Post
(& link)
Year of
Publicn
Total
Hits
2016
Increase
1 (1) A-Z of Fetish Artists – Mike Carcel 2010 17445 3034
2 (2) Priapus of Milet - 1 2012 12392 3452
3 (3) A-Z of Fetish Artists - Malex 2010 10214 1635
4 (4) A-Z of Fetish Artists - Franco 2009 9413 1461
5 (5) A-Z of Fetish Artists - Jotto 2009 8792 1496
6 (7) A-Z of Fetish Artists – Martin of Holland 2010 6603 1461
7 (6) My Initiation 2012 5936 352
8 (-) A-Z of Fetish Artists - Cavelo 2008 5412 4217
9 (8) A-Z of Fetish Artists - Heredia 2009 4878 874
10 (11) A-Z of Fetish Artists - Leo 2010 4697 1088
11 (10) A-Z of Fetish Artists – Klaus von Brandenburg 2009 4501 868
12 (9) A-Z of Fetish Artists - Mahoney 2010 4500 774
13 (12) A Tribute to Bound Gods 2011 4459 892
14 (16) A-Z of Fetish Artists - Platter 2012 4228 1155
15 (13) Vintage Bondage Blog 2012 4125 655
16 (14) A-Z of Fetish Artists - Matt 2010 3952 681
17 (15) A-Z of Fetish Artists - Manflesh 2010 3864 729
18 (20) A-Z of Fetish Artists – Michael Mitchell 2010 3800 1042
19 (18) A-Z of Fetish Artists - Marc 2010 3735 801
20 (17) More Bondage Sightings 2012 3492 507

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 article kept 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 (19 last 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 19 from 20 position and Sean Platter was another notable riser from 16 to 14 position ('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 Heredia is 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 6 spot 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 Carcel which 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 Baron with 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.

 To see previous results click on the MPP label below

Sunday, 1 January 2017

WoodunArt is Most Popular Post in 2016 (MPP1)

WoodunArt - Lumberjack  (click to expand)
At this time of year it is my custom to review the year's posts to see which attracted the most interest. According to my Blogger 'view count' stats, those below are the most visited posts out of all those published in 2016 (titles link to original posts). Where articles have equal numbers of hits those with the later publication dates are ranked higher. Stats collected on 29th December 2016

Posn
Title (+link)
Hits
Published
1
1443
Jul
2
632
Jan
3
566
Jan
4
496
Jan
5
492
Jan
6
461
June
7
427
Jan
8
388
Mar
9
372
May
10
372
Feb
11
360
June
12
360
Apr
13
350
June
14
336
Mar
15
336
Jan
16
329
Apr
17
328
Jul
18
327
Jul
19
323
Feb
20
317
May
21
317
May

This is for entertainment only, I don't know how valid or representative Google's stats really are, I suspect they don't reflect at all people just browsing through the blog. Also posts from January have an advantage over December (see below*). On this simple measure nothing after July made the cut, despite that figure being only 317, slightly lower than last year's 331. Apart from the winner, all articles scored slightly lower than the equivalent ranking position last year, although mitchmen blog visits overall this year have increased (View last years table)

The winner this year is less surprising than Eddie Chin last time, but like him WoodunArt produces straightforward male representational art as well as S&M flavoured story-telling images. In this he follows the traditions of the other masters featured in my A-Z series, but with a notable touch of class. He is a worthy winner and his 'hit score' reflects this, more than 50% higher than Eddie's 955 in 2015 and Tagame's 973 in 2014.

As you might imagine, I am delighted that My 'Christmas Criminal' Story provided the runner-up and 7 of the top 20 entries altogether. It's the first time I have premiered a complete story at the blog (instead of the mitchmen Yahoo! Group) and my first all-colour series too. I expect to repeat these experiments sometime. Interestingly the individual episodes with the highest scores all feature the original group of images around which I built the story. Just to show the significane of timing in this annual review - the Christmas Criminal starting episode published on 23rd Dec last year has had 1372 hits to date and Christmas Criminal episode 12 (Dec 27th) has scored 1206. Both these items would have featured in the top spots here had they been published a few days later in 2016. As it was, their hits at the end of 2015 were far too few to register in that year's list either.

The other notable feature of this year is the return of several 'A-Z of Fetish Artists' entries which were totally absent last year. I'm glad Bill Ward, Valentine and Viste have got recognition from you but it's good to see lesser known names attracting interest as well.

There's usually a bondage-oriented photo post featured in this list and this year there are two, the intriguing 'Chinese Bondage' and 'Sailor Beware' honouring the Bound and Gagged studio once more. The number of articles with photographic content rather than artwork was 3 (the same as last year).

*Out of interest, I worked out how this table would look if I took into account the publication date as well as the total hits. On this measure (hits per 365 days) WoodunArt still comes top followed (a long way behind) by Bill Ward, WithNoTitle, WhiteBriefs, Wait a minute! and Christmas Criminal (16). If I were also to include more recent posts which didn't make the 'total hits' cut, the picture changes even more dramatically. For example, the December 'Vintage Season No 3' post (129 hits) would beat all but the winner, as would my October Greasetank Article (252) and the A-Z item on Xue Song aka Song Inkollo (161) in November. These articles benefit from their peak interest level being spread over a much shorter period. Which just goes to show this table shouldn't be taken too seriously!

Thank you to all my readers for your interest in my blog, I will publish the updated all-time list of favourites shortly. Happy New Year!

To see previous results click on the MPP label below