WordPress: The ‘Annual Report’

~ beetleypete

Anyone blogging for more than a full year will recall those notifications that WordPress sent out. They told you all about how your blog had done during the past year. How many views, how many visitors, and full statistics. They would mention how many readers would have filled this or that venue, and what your most popular posts had been.

It went on to tell you all about the countries that visitors had come from, how many new followers you had got, and lots of other stuff that was of great interest to anyone really involved in their own blog.

After Christmas, I waited for the report to appear. 2016 had been a busy year on my blog, and I was keen to see the usual comprehensive overview provided by WordPress. But nothing showed up. No report telling me all those fascinating facts. Now January is coming to a close, I am resigned to the fact that this is something else that WordPress has just decided to do away with, apparently without telling us bloggers.

So did I miss it? Did any of you get their report? Maybe I deleted it by mistake, or just didn’t notice it this year?

Let me know in the comments if you got yours, or what you think about those reports.

66 thoughts on “WordPress: The ‘Annual Report’”

  1. Now I know I`m not the only one! I did not get my 2016 report either and thought I had somehow missed it. Dismayed to know WordPress has done away with this essential feature. It was a great tool for tracking my progress from year to year. They should bring it back!

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  5. I didn’t get anything Pete but I’m not sure if I have in the past. I don’t on the anniversary of my first post I’ll receive a notification of the fact. I hope stuff like this continues.

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    1. Thanks, Bette. If you see Jennie’s comment, you will note that WordPress have done away with those reports, at least for this year. That and the changes to the Reader seem to be their way of attempting to shake things up. As we know, that doesn’t always work for the good of us bloggers.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  8. Hmm, I am not sure – I should have gotten mine in October, but it was a complicated month, and I might have missed it. In any case, I don’t remember seeing it. I thought it was very useful, precisely because it presented a summary of data, that most of us, I imagine, do not have ready at their fingerprints. If they decided to not do it again, I believe you are correct: they should have at least notified their bloggers!

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    1. Given all the comments on this post, Nandia, I think we can say for sure that this has gone. I agree that it was a useful summary for bloggers, and also one of the things about WordPress that made them different. Anyone paying a fee for the platform should be complaining about lack of inclusion.
      I don’t pay, but I will be contacting WordPress to ask why.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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      2. Pete, I just did the live chat thing with WordPress. First they said they were not doing it this year. When I asked why, this is what they said: “We’re not sending out one this year, but we’re going to take another look at sending them out for 2016.”

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  15. Another change Pete. The stats were fun to read, but I guess they expect us to create our own reports now. Along with numerous other changes like the new Reader which I have struggled to use lately. And I have noticed some of my comments disappearing into Spam again today, annoyingly on sites I frequently make comments on, so why Akismet has taken a dislike to me I do not know 😦
    I hope you are keeping warm over there!

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    1. WordPress can’t seem to leave well enough alone, Jude, that’s for sure.
      Thursday was one of the coldest days I can recall in a few years, so Friday seemed balmy by comparison. Supposed to keep warming up over the weekend with rain on Sunday. Even I have had to admit we haven’t had much rain lately! x

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  16. Same with us, Pete. No annual report this year and I must admit I missed it.
    There are many changes taking place. I’m annoyed with the appearance of the photos in the “new” reader. We now see persons without a head, landscapes without water or a skye and carefully composed photos appears like silly somethings … I complained. And hundreds and hundreds of others, we’ll see.
    Best wishes from Norway with a gentle pat for dear Ollie,
    Dina & co

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    1. Strange how they change things for no apparent reason, and with no consultation. At least most of us are not paying for the service. I hope it isn’t too cold over there, and look forward to seeing more photos of your homeland later. Our best wishes to KB.
      Love from Beetley, Pete and Ollie. X

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  17. I never got one, because this was my first year. But when I started, I used to get notices such as ‘You have now published your tenth post’ or Congrats! You have 4 followers.’ These have been discontinued. I suspect they’ve just shoved everything into the STATS page. There you can see views for years, months and days, where your followers come from etc. As I understand it, WP is run by a group of volunteers, so they do fiddle about with things on a whim. Some things have become more complicated, such as putting in a link. If it ain’t broke, why fix it, is my way of thinking, but obviously not theirs!

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    1. Hi, Marina.
      After more than four years, i have often been frustrated by the way that WordPress feels that it OK to change things overnight, and always without consultation. However, as I don’t pay for a premium package, I am happy to have the service free of charge. I investigated other blogging platforms before choosing WordPress, and I think it is still the best available, even with the frequent glitches and alterations.
      As for being run by volunteers, I have no idea. I have seen them advertising jobs, and they appear to employ people in many countries. So I am guessing that many of them are salaried employees.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  19. The reports were nice but I don’t remember getting one either — but I do not care because: (1) I believe our effort to communicate with the vast world out there is more important than any numbers and I have always believed that if you write it somebody will come to read it and if you write it well enough the passing of time will bring you the audience you were intended to have.

    There are more than a Hundred Million blogs out there and more being formed each day that passes. If we get even a few hundred readers I think we are doing well. If our message only reaches one reader and helps them in any way then I think our efforts have been rewarded.

    Improvement comes with learning and with practice and learning and practice improve things over a period of time. The longer we blog the more likely we are to build that audience.

    But I believe the message is what is important and if you are steadily attracting new readers and more and more visits over a period of time then your pattern of progress is positive and should not be a concern.

    One can always judge the progress of a blog by engaging the mechanism called “Google Analytics” which also shows numbers of visitors and gives lots of hints on how to improve blogs.

    Then for the studious blogger, there is this: —http://www.bloggingpro.com/

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    1. Thanks for the tips, John. You are right that the numbers are not important, if you enjoy blogging for the sake of it. Nonetheless, I did used to enjoy those annual reports, and in the first couple of years, they really inspired me to keep going.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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      1. Passion for your subject is important. Burning desire to get a message out is extremely important as motivation. I hope you keep blogging because I really enjoy reading the things you write and you must remember that if a Hundred people read something on your blog it is kind of a miracle if one or two ever take the time to comment. People are not known to be very active as commenters these days for whatever the reason so never ever let a lack of comments discourage you. Pay attention to your daily stats. If people are reading you then you are reaching somebody. You are doing good work so keep it up and don’t sweat the small stuff.

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  26. Since I won’t have a year in until April I guess I won’t know what I missed! But I have noticed things seem to change even during the time I’ve been blogging. Some kind of page with updates and release notes would be helpful.

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  28. I never got one at all…agree with you that it is always frustrating to have things change with no warning like this…after all, we pay to be part of wordpress, you would think they’d engage us a bit more

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    1. I still use the free platform, so I suppose I can’t complain. It just seems a bit penny-pinching. After all, it was only once a year, and I doubt it took much for WordPress to do it.
      Thanks, John.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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