In 2021, idratherbewriting.com had 1,865,635 page views, or about 5,111 page views a day (213 page views an hour). More specifically, users created 1,266,999 sessions, with 1.47 pages per session and an average of 1:19 minutes per session.
Overall page views
Here’s a breakdown of site traffic analytics on idratherbewriting.com for 2021 according to Google Analytics.

For historical trends, here’s a graph that shows the growth of the site from its inception in 2006 through 2021.

Traffic was fairly consistent from 2010 through 2017. In 2017, I added the API documentation site, which provided a lot of growth.
Analytics breakdown
The following table includes more details from other Google Analytics reports. To make the data more meaningful, I’ve provided data from 2019, 2020, and 2021 to compare the changes from one year to the next. I also round data to the nearest whole number (e.g., 1.51% is rounded to 2%; 1.49% is rounded to 1%).
Metric | 2019 -> 2020 -> 2021 |
---|---|
Page views | 1,974,524 -> 1,814,770 -> 1,865,635 |
Average page views per day | 5,409 -> 4,971 -> 5,111 |
Average page views per hour | 225 -> 207 -> 213 |
Unique page views | 1,704,059 -> 1,592,088 -> 1,865,635 |
Average time on page | 2:40 -> 2:43 -> 2:48 |
Users | 909,236 -> 916,922 -> 982,313 |
Sessions | 1,207,264 -> 1,195,729 -> 1,266,999 |
Sessions per user | 1.33 -> 1.30 -> 1.29 |
Avg. session duration | 1:41 -> 1:25 ->1:19 |
Page views per session | 1.64 -> 1.52 -> 1.47 |
Bounce rate | 78% -> 81% -> 82% |
Organic search traffic (unpaid search traffic) | 85% -> 89% -> 90% |
Traffic from social | 6,373 -> 7,813 -> 11,346 |
Social site breakdown | Linkedin: 42% -> 47% ->44% YouTube: 8% -> 13 %-> 19% Facebook: 15% -> 9% ->8% Twitter: 23% -> 18% -> 11% |
Location | US: 32% -> 29% ->25% India: 17% -> 19% ->20% UK: 5% -> 5% ->4% |
Browser | Chrome: 76% -> 78% -> 77% Safari: 8% -> 8% -> 9% Firefox: 9% -> 8% ->7% |
Device type | desktop: 88% -> 88% ->86% mobile: 11% -> 12% -> 14% tablet: 1.1% -> 0.6% -> 0.5% |
Mobile device type | iPhone: 38% -> 37% -> 40% iPad: 6% -> 3% -> 2% |
Operating System | Windows: 59% -> 57% ->56% Mac: 21% -> 23% ->23% Android + iOS: 12% -> 12% ->14% |
Age | 18-24: 15% -> 22% ->26% 25-34: 52% -> 46% -> 41% 35-44: (22% -> 18% ->18%) 45-54: 7% -> 8% ->9% 55-64: 2% -> 3% ->4% |
Gender | male: 73% -> 75% ->70.6% female: 27% -> 25% ->29.4 |
All of this information is provided through Google Analytics by default. (I don’t have any special scripts or other tracking cookies other than what Google adds through Google Analytics. Also note that I’m not sure how Google tracks age and gender. Google also tracks hobby categories, though I haven’t shown it here.)
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API doc traffic percentage
In 2018, 59% of my site traffic came to my API documentation site (/learnapidoc/). In 2019, that percentage jumped up to 72%. In 2020, this percentage climbed to 75%. And in 2021, 76%. Here’s a graph showing the traffic trends to all /learnapidoc
pages from 2017 to 2021.

The traffic from the API documentation visitors is outperforming other traffic sources, with 3 out of every 4 visitors going to the API documentation site.
Top 10 API doc pages
The top 10 most popular pages are as follows:
- Step 3: Parameters (API reference tutorial) (11%)
- Documenting APIs: A guide for technical writers and engineers (7%)
- Swagger UI tutorial (7%)
- Step 2: Endpoints and methods (API reference tutorial) (5%)
- Access and print a specific JSON value (4%)
- Activity: Use the GitHub Desktop client (3%)
- API authentication and authorization (2%)
- Working in YAML (OpenAPI tutorial) (2%)
- Step 4: Request example (API reference tutorial) (2%)
Because of the interest in the API doc site, I have continued to add to it, treating it as a living site, with constantly updated and evolving content.
Posts analyzing site analytics
For more details about analytics, see the following posts. These posts expand on audience interests and demographics.
- 2021 — Site analytics for 2021
- 2020 — Site analytics for 2020 – trends, reflections, and thoughts
- 2019 — Reflections on my 2019 site analytics
- 2018 — Site analytics from Jan 1 to Dec 31, 2018 – are more engineers writing docs now?
- 2017 — Unexpected realizations after a comprehensive review of my 2017 site metrics
- 2016 — Analyzing top posts on my blog during 2015 —- Deciding between brand versus readership
- 2015 — Top 10 posts, podcasts, tweets of 2014 – and what it all means