Last month I noted that China had suddenly appeared in my blog statistics as the country with the eighth greatest number of Attempted Bloggery page views. Prior to February of this year, it scarcely appeared at all. Now this month it has moved up in rank to seventh among all nations.
This raises an interesting question, one which I don't think has an answer: Where would China rank in my blog statistics if there were absolutely no restrictions there on internet access? This is not an easy question. It could very well be that linguistic and cultural differences might serve to keep my blog unpopular, at least on a per capita basis. To some degree, though, technology like Google Translator could make this blog very accessible even to someone with no knowledge of English. I don't know if the Chinese would have much cultural affinity with this blog's typical subject matter, which is often humorous artwork of American or European origin. On the other hand, though, the sheer number of Chinese could potentially push this nation to the top of my statistics. How would all of this balance out?
Well, I just don't know. I would expect India, with 1.22 billion people and widespread use of English to be high on my list, but it isn't. On the other hand, I'm continually surprised by Russia's very strong showing here. It's only a guess, but I'd like to think a China with complete freedom from internet censorship would be ranked around third or fourth in page views.
For reference, here are the page view rankings by country since the inception of the blog. Note the prominence of English-speaking countries and of Europe:
June 8, 2013 Update: Despite constant internet censorship by the Chinese authorities, readership of this blog continues to increase in that country. Over the six weeks since this post was first published, China has advanced in the standings and is now tied for sixth place among all nations of the globe in monthly page views. The Chinese have caught up with the Canadians in the number of monthly page views emanating from the country, and indeed China was even a bit ahead of Canada yesterday. To be honest, I'm more surprised to see Turkey and Ukraine among the top ten countries, nudging out India (only recently active here), Spain, and Brazil.
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| Attempted Bloggery Monthly Page Views by Country, April 23, 2013 |
This raises an interesting question, one which I don't think has an answer: Where would China rank in my blog statistics if there were absolutely no restrictions there on internet access? This is not an easy question. It could very well be that linguistic and cultural differences might serve to keep my blog unpopular, at least on a per capita basis. To some degree, though, technology like Google Translator could make this blog very accessible even to someone with no knowledge of English. I don't know if the Chinese would have much cultural affinity with this blog's typical subject matter, which is often humorous artwork of American or European origin. On the other hand, though, the sheer number of Chinese could potentially push this nation to the top of my statistics. How would all of this balance out?
Well, I just don't know. I would expect India, with 1.22 billion people and widespread use of English to be high on my list, but it isn't. On the other hand, I'm continually surprised by Russia's very strong showing here. It's only a guess, but I'd like to think a China with complete freedom from internet censorship would be ranked around third or fourth in page views.
For reference, here are the page view rankings by country since the inception of the blog. Note the prominence of English-speaking countries and of Europe:
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| Attempted Bloggery All-Time Page Views by Country, April 23, 2013 |
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| Attempted Bloggery Monthly Page Views by Country, June 8, 2013 |
Note: Last month's post on China's unanticipated increase in activity on this blog can be found here. To see my comments on Google Translator's French version of this blog, take a look here. If you'd like to see what Attempted Bloggery looks like in Chinese, by all means check it out here.
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