Credit Where Credit is Due

Two days from now, on June 1 to be exact, this humble blog will celebrate its eighth anniversary.  Unsolicited Opinion may be a backwater in blogtopia (ysctp!) but it is a long-lasting.  Eight years is a long time in internet years so I take a certain amount of pride in keeping the show going, despite low traffic.  I write because I want to say things and publishing forces me to clarify my thoughts.  If I were doing it for the recognition or high traffic volume, this site would have been dead a long time ago.

Although traffic here is miniscule by Big Box Blog standards, it has been picking up of late.  May will be the third month in a row that more than 400 visitors stopped by.  May's total might even top 500.  My average daily traffic has inched up from the high single digits to the mid-teens.  A large part of that growth is due to links on other blogs, especially on The Galloping Beaver where each post on Unsolicited Opinion appears on their masthead until it is superseded by other blog posts.  Some days virtually all of my traffic comes through TGB.  I'm especially pleased that a fine Canadian blog recognizes me.  I'm hardly the only US blog on their masthead but I am pleased to show our neighbors to the north that all Americans are not batshit crazy.

Three other blogs, Herlander Refugee, Disaffected and It Feels So Good, and Under the LobsterScope are also feature my most recent post on their masthead the same.  I see them show up occasionally as a referral source.  I appreciate the recognition and have added all three to my blogroll.  I guess the truly proper thing would be to figure out how to return the favor and show their most recent posts on my masthead but at the moment I don't know how that is done.  Regardless, a blog with readership in the mid-teens is unlikely to generate much in the way of traffic.

In all ways, I appreciate the support of fellow bloggers and am happy to return the favor.