2023 sees an increase in the number of visitors to the blog...

Before we get too far into the new year, this post is about 2023 and the level of traffic to the blog. At the end of 2023, I had a look at the level of traffic to the site and I noted a rise in the number of pageviews.

The number of monthly pageviews changes a lot over the course of the year but the stats for each December for the last few years gives a good overview of what it's been like.

Back in December of 2020, we were in some form of lockdown and there were no races. There were a few virtual runs with people doing their own thing but there's only so much you can write about when there's nothing really happening. The number of pageviews for December 2020 was down around the 31,000 mark.

I should add that 'pageviews' isn't the same as the number of people. If someone visits the blog every day then they'd generate about 30 pageviews for the month. If they visit once a week then it's 4 pageviews for the month.

By December 2021, some of the races had resumed and the blog shot up to 61,000 pageviews for the month.

By December 2022, most of the races had resumed but the race numbers were down on what they were. The number of pageviews to the site stayed around the same level with 56,000.

2023 saw a real recovery in the number of people doing races, parkruns and running in general. The figure for December 2023 was around 90,000 pageviews, a significant jump on the previous year.

For the year as a whole, the blog got 1.34 million pageviews. Again, that's not 1.34 million people but it's still a huge number of pageviews for a site about running in Cork.

The number of followers to the Running in Cork Facebook page continues to grow. At the moment, it has 19,259 followers and it reached 98,805 Facebook accounts in the last 28 days.

Some of the most popular Facebook posts in the last 90 days were...

• Post about the new Greenway from Frankfield to Tramore Valley Park - this one reached 280,547 Facebook accounts.
• Post about the lead women in the Clonmel 4-mile over Christmas - this reached 67,760 accounts.
• Post about the first three women in the Newmarket 5k - this reached 37,373 accounts.
• Post about the Clonakilty marathon moving location - this reached 37,016 accounts.
• Post about Cork runner Ryan Creech finishing second in the Dublin marathon - this reached 28,489 accounts.
• Post about Michelle Kenny winning the Rebel Run 10k - this reached 21,820 accounts.
• Post about Paul Hartnett finishing 3rd in the Clonmel 4m at Christmas - 18,658 accounts.
• Post about the Dungarvan to Mallow Greenway - 18,658 accounts

...and so on.

The thing about Facebook is that size really matters. If a page has say 1000 followers then a post reaching 5000 might be considered 'viral'. When a page has over 19,000 followers, the same 'viral' post is up over 90,000 accounts.

Twitter & Instagram... The Running in Cork Twitter / X account now has 3,492 followers. The Running in Cork Instagram account has 1,455 followers.

I guess if I was just starting off now, I'd probably be making more noise about these stats but I've been at this since late 2006. I hardly ever check the stats now and I just post away.

Looking at the stats got me thinking about how much of an impact does the blog have on the running scene in Cork? It's impossible to know for sure but 1.3 million pageviews per annum and reaching tens of thousands of accounts on Facebook must have some impact.

When I update the calendar on a regular basis, I'm often reminded that the running scene in Cork is not replicated in places like Limerick, Galway or Waterford. The number of races there is only a fraction of what happens in Cork.