Filipino Historian Fifth State of the Blog Address

Filipino Historian: Fifth State of the Blog Address

This is the history blog's fifth State of the Blog Address. This, however, is not your ordinary blog update. Last year, the fourth State of the Blog Address was published to provide an annual report on the progress being made by this history blog. This year, the newly established tradition of publishing an annual address continues with the fourth address. This is the 36th update article published by this history website. For many who may think this is just some chest-beating and chair-raising, then I am probably doing mine. However, these little victories are owed not only to a single author writing somewhere in the archipelago, but also to the hundreds of thousands of readers who even bothered, because this author may be an army of one, but we have empowered thousands to recognize and appreciate their history. These people must know that they have been part of a larger movement to restore and maintain our national memory, because a nation without history is like a person without memory.

Why October?

New name, new logo
It portrays the site's initials

It has to be recalled why the annual address has been delivered every October of the year, but why? While the anniversary is in December, on October 4, 2014, the Filipino Historian (FH) began a revival first announced on September 29 of the same year. The task was not easy as this blog focuses on a discipline that is not really popular in the Philippines, as exhibited by this year's survey of history in the web. There is also fierce competition presented by older and better organized, although usually trivialized to the point of near mediocrity, history blogs and websites. What can a "single author writing somewhere in the archipelago" really do? Still, while the situation seemed hopeless, the restoration is on. This is where our story begins.

In the first two years of this blog, it has recorded a monthly average of 52 views. In the next five years, the blog has recorded a daily average of 287 views (up from 188 views a day as of October 2018), and the trend continues to hold. In November 2018, for instance, the blog has exceeded 77,000 views in a month, a performance which may well solidify a spot for the Filipino Historian as one of the top blogs in the Philippines.

Rising recognition

This blog began from what we can call level zero. Frankly, it was insignificant when it re-entered the blogosphere four years ago. However, as the audience continued to grow, and traffic began to take an upward trend, the Filipino Historian was soon detected in the radars of national and global rankings.

In website rankers Alexa and SimilarWeb, the Filipino Historian ranked in the top 0.2% and top 0.1% of live websites, respectively, as of October 2019. This is the highest level reached by the website since it was ranked in 2015 (for Alexa) and in 2017 (for SimilarWeb), respectively. This means that out of billions of active sites in the internet, this history blog is doing well enough to even be ranked regularly.

Other rankings seem to support the contention of an emerging history website. In Feedspot's list of Top 100 Philippine Blogs, this history blog's rank began at 72nd in December 2017 to 64th in July 2019. It has remained in the rankings ever since. Also, the Filipino Historian is not even included in ASEAN UP's list of top 50 blogs in the Philippines, which was updated as of March 2019.

Mainstream media is also taking notice of this single author, as evidenced by his appearances in national and international media (detailed here).

While it is indeed recognized that history is not a very popular discipline in the Philippines, and the website itself does not appear to consistently rank well across the board, it has to be acknowledged that one history website is making strides to share freely such knowledge for all people.

Facebook page as of 2018

Five million miracles in 2019

Even though this history blog has been serving the world for more than five years, it only began to permeate social media recently. On October 29, 2014, the official Facebook page of this history blog was launched. To date, the page had exceeded 6100 followers. This means an average growth of 7% per month since the fifth address. While still respectable, it is just about the same as last year pace of 7% per month. However, as a stern note, unlike other "popular" blogs and websites, even those dabbling with history, the Filipino Historian does not, and will not, buy or purchase followers and views for the sake of artificial popularity. Until now, the author has no means to acquire its own top-level domain, which may further boost its search engine optimization. What was achieved now by this single author is hard work, coupled by the irreplaceable support of thousands who grew to love and appreciate history through this medium.

Twitter page as of 2018

All time statistics reveal that Facebook has been the largest single source of views for this history blog so far. Views from Facebook account for 25% of the total all time views of the blog, down from 42% last year, which exemplifies the diversification drive of traffic sources. The following year, on October 27, 2015, the official Twitter page of this history blog was launched. As believed by this author in the past years, Twitter has been a growth area in contributing to traffic for this blog (around 4.4%, up from 0.1% last year). Again, this can be seen as a positive note in efforts to diversify this website's traffic sources.

After last year's unexpected growth, 2016 projections for the Filipino Historian have been readjusted to reaching five million people by 2020. This history blog revised this short-term vision as "five million miracles." As of October 2019, this history website's social media platforms reached 6,405,540 people. A miracle has indeed been made, especially since we still have a few weeks left before entering a new decade by 2020. Of course, the service to the people of the Philippines and the world does not end here. This is just the launching pad. As we approach seven years of public service, it is aimed for this blog to reach as many as possible to fulfill the greater good of history.

A national blog for the Philippines
On November 24, 2014, the blog began to officially record its reach throughout the Philippines partially through Facebook. This is the first result received by the blog. Darker areas meant there are more readers within the province. Of course, it has to be considered that the blog had to begin from virtually nothing. This history blog is maintained by a single author.

By 2019, the Filipino Historian has truly become a national blog by having readers from all provinces of the Philippines. Not only from Aparri to Jolo, as the song goes, but literally from Batanes to Tawi-Tawi. This may not mean much for many people, but this phenomenon is sufficient manifestation of this website's motto: "Bringing history to the Philippines and the world."

How international is international?

On June 1, 2015, the history blog recognized that it was read in 35 countries worldwide other than the Philippines, and had double- and triple-digit number of visitors in at least six (6) of these countries since the official count began February 3, 2015. Since then, the title International has been added. How has the Filipino Historian fared after three and a half years? As of October 14, 2019, the blog has been read in 92 countries. It also had double- and triple-digit number of visitors in at least 35 countries worldwide, an increase from 33 countries last year. Meanwhile, the social media outlets of this blog has followers from 50 different nations, the same as last year. Despite the increasing worldwide reach of this blog, and the diversification of the topics being covered, it is noticeable that 66% of all time views (up from 61%) and 86% of social media followers (up from 85%) hail from the author's homeland, the Philippines. He is, after all, the Filipino Historian.

The itsy bitsy blog crawling up the Web

The following are some of the screenshots to showcase how the blog has fared in leading search engines. All the readers and the followers of this history blog receives utmost thanks from its author.

Filipino Historian is top search entry in Google

This blog also has three out of ten top entries in Yahoo

This blog is the top entry in Bing, and has three other entries in the top ten

This blog is also the top entry in Naver

"Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your master!"

(Matthew 25:21)