Seven is heaven, eight is great and nine is fine. I launched the website on March 1, 2014, which is exactly nine years ago, hence "nine is fine". The first blog entry I posted had the dramatic title "So it begins...". Since then I have posted an anniversary blog post every year. The second blog post (2015) had the expectantly title "So it continues...". Here, I discussed the past, present and future for the site. The third blog post (2016) had the prosaic title "And so it goes on and on and on and on and on...". Here, I did some merciless following up on ambitions and promises. The fourth blog post (2017) had the patronizing title "The necessity of content gardening". Here, I stated that a website, with proper content gardening, could live forever. The fifth blog post (2018) had the technical title "Ratchet effect through organic growth”. Here, I speculated how web indexing and algorithms drove traffic to unprecedented levels. The sixth blog post (2019) had the glorifying title "5 years and 100 000 hits". Here, I rattled off statistics lengthwise and crosswise. The seventh blog post (2020) had the dutiful title "The show must go on". Here, I concluded that the responsibilities I have towards society are too important to be calling it quits. The eight blog post (2021) had the explanatory title "7 is the number following 6 and preceding 8". Here, I complained about muddling through in the time of the pandemic. The ninth blog post (2022) had the cheerful title "Eight is great". Here, I made some random remarks. Today, it's time again for a new blog post. The visitor counter indicates 220 038.
Assessment
Executive summary: The website has operated successfully for the last nine years. New content has been added with regularity and to a sufficient degree without any deterioration in quality. The website is in need of a minor review, primarly with the intent on updating existing pages and removal of dead links. A plan for this has been developed and implemented. Minor disruptancies in the operation of the website have occured, but this haven't affected production or quality. The coming year we will see a strong focus on content and the management and development of the site.
Visitor statistics
To go from zero to 220 000 visitors took 3 277 days. The site didn't have many visits from start. Then the web indexing and Google algorithms began to kick in. The average number of days to reach another 10 000 visitors has normally been around 130-140. The last year has been a record year. More than 37 000 visitors during the last year. All time high.
| Hits | Date | Days | Total |
| 10 000 | 2014-11-20 | 264 | 264 |
| 20 000 | 2015-07-05 | 227 | 491 |
| 30 000 | 2016-03-05 | 244 | 735 |
| 40 000 | 2016-10-21 | 230 | 965 |
| 50 000 | 2017-04-09 | 170 | 1 135 |
| 60 000 | 2017-08-18 | 131 | 1 266 |
| 70 000 | 2018-01-09 | 144 | 1 410 |
| 80 000 | 2018-05-19 | 130 | 1 540 |
| 90 000 | 2018-10-06 | 140 | 1 680 |
| 100 000 | 2019-02-17 | 134 | 1 814 |
| 110 000 | 2019-07-16 | 149 | 1 963 |
| 120 000 | 2020-01-03 | 171 | 2 134 |
| 130 000 | 2020-05-03 | 141 | 2 275 |
| 140 000 | 2020-10-10 | 140 | 2 415 |
| 150 000 | 2021-02-20 | 133 | 2 548 |
| 160 000 | 2021-06-14 | 114 | 2 662 |
| 170 000 | 2021-09-22 | 100 | 2 762 |
| 180 000 | 2022-01-27 | 127 | 2 889 |
| 190 000 | 2022-05-24 | 117 | 2 997 |
| 200 000 | 2022-09-04 | 103 | 3 100 |
| 210 000 | 2022-11-25 | 82 | 3 182 |
| 220 000 | 2023-02-28 | 95 | 3 277 |
I wrote zero new articles last year. New articles have no intrisic value. I don't want to lower my standards. I have a list of 4-5 bands waiting to be included in my prestigious article series. Moreover, I listed 28 new artists in the table, created zero new lists and wrote 34 blog entries (which also is some kind of record).
| Department | 2023-03-01 | 2022-03-01 | 2021-03-01 | 2020-03-01 | 2019-03-01 | 2018-03-01 | 2017-03-01 |
| Articles | 68 | 68 | 67 | 66 | 65 | 62 | 62 |
| Artists | 171 | 143 | 142 | 141 | 138 | 135 | 128 |
| Lists | 42 | 42 | 42 | 42 | 42 | 32 | 27 |
| Blog | 248 | 214 | 184 | 158 | 129 | 99 | 84 |
The five pages below are the most visited. The order has shifted over time. The start page (Home) is and have always been the most visited page. Not very surprising. The second page is the list "10 essential gothic country albums", which comprises a canon of must-have gothic country albums. The third page "Artists" is a simple list with links to Discogs and articles. Review of "Fossils" (Sons of Perdition collaborative album) is placed as number four. The "10 best version of Wayfaring Stranger" list is a newcomer and placed as number five. The Sons of Perdition article page belonged to the five most visited pages for many years. It's now placed as number seven.
| No | Page | 2023-03-01 | 2022-03-01 | 2021-03-01 | 2020-03-01 | 2019-03-01 | 2018-03-01 | 2017-03-01 |
| 1 | Home | 220 038 | 182 591 | 150 601 | 124 031 | 100 813 | 73 857 | 46 277 |
| 2 | 10 essential gothic country albums | 28 662 | 26 981 | 24 663 | 19 722 | 14 372 | 7 540 | 3 946 |
| 3 | Artists | 28 414 | 22 312 | 19 410 | 16 228 | 13 312 | 9 983 | 5 513 |
| 4 | Review of "Fossils" | 19 972 | 16 942 | 13 390 | - | - | - | - |
| 5 | 10 best versions of "Wayfaring Stranger" | 18 632 | - | - | - | - | - | - |
The website has been up and running almost twenty-four seven. Some components have given up. Easy Image Rotator (2022-03-27) and Music Collection (2022-10-09) didn't survive an uppdate and have been replaced. I reached the limit of number of simultanous PHP-processes (2022-06-24), which stopped traffic to the site. I experienced long response times both frontend and backend (2022-08-29). I have done a lot of maintance, but still has some minor things to fix. If you stumble over any obsolete or incorrect information or any dead links don't hesitate to contact me and I will fix it. I take some pride in that the website is updated. On October 23, 2022 the website was succesfully migrated to Joomla 4. At the same time I changed web hosting provider. The site is future-proofed.
Reflections
My junk mail folder is filled to the brim with SEO-obsessed programmers who wants to give advice of how to earn money from the site. The site is non-profit and free of advertisment. This is the way it has been and will always be. One of the strangest suggestions last year was an offer to write blog posts automatically. According to the programmer, it is time-consuming to write a blog post. Another suggestion I got was to use an AI Content Generator since it can be both time-consuming and difficult to come up with content ideas. Yes, but it's fun and rewarding. Other than that, it's business as usual. The Russians try to infiltrate the site and the Chinese try to scam me into buying CN domains. Apparently, China Registry received an application from Hongqing Ltd requested "gothiccountry" as their internet keyword and China (CN) domain names (gothiccountry.cn, gothiccountry.com.cn, gothiccountry.net.cn, gothiccountry.org.cn). There's a reason these e-mails go directly to the junk mail folder.
Future
I will go on untiringly within the limits of family, work and other duties.