toros:toreros - 100 subscribers & 4,000 visitors
This blog site has just attracted its 100th subscriber - something I have to confess I thought would have been achieved some time ago. Subscription to toros:toreros costs nothing (you simply have to fill in a form on the site’s home page) and in return you receive an email every time new articles are published. Since the site was started in October 2020, it has published 262 articles on all things los toros - an average of five per month.
Every so often I receive an email from website professionals offering to make changes that will give the site a higher ranking on Google and other search engines. That’s of no interest to me: I’m content for the site to have a niche audience, to grow gradually, largely through word of mouth.
And the audience is growing. As well as the hundred subscribers, there were some 4,000 unique visitors to the site in 2024 - an increase of 62% on the previous year’s figure. Over half the site users were based in the UK (27.2%) and USA (25.5%). Spain came third with 10.6% followed by Canada, The Netherlands, Norway, France, Czechia, Russia and Sweden.
Examination of the most viewed articles in 2024 shows what has generated most interest, but also reveals what subject material leads viewers to the site. The most viewed article last year - ‘The year’s top toreros’ from the 2023 Season Review series - continues to be the most viewed piece so far this year despite a set of Season Review articles for 2024 having been published since. The second most viewed piece in 2024 is an article on Manuel Granero that has consistently been amongst the most viewed articles ever since it was published in July 2022. The other most viewed articles in 2024 were ‘The missing man’ (a piece on Daniel Luque), ‘Onetoro feels the sword’, ‘A people’s fiesta that ignores the people’, ‘Interview with a horn-shaver’, ‘Morante - is this the end?’ (fortunately not), ‘Rutas del Toro’ on ganadería visits, ‘The end of a dream?’ (again, fortunately not, the novillero Manuel Román has just cut two ears and a tail in his comeback novillada at Montoro and his alternativa is now fixed for this year’s Feria de Córdoba) and ‘The Princes of Sevilla’, an article that evaluated the top performances in last year’s Feria de Abril.
Toros:toreros aims particularly to help fellow aficionados follow each European temporada, with feria previews, timely reports from ferias (my thanks go to Jock Richardson, Roy Gittings and Pieter Hildering for their input here over the past year, toros:toreros having featured ringside reports from Castellón, the Tres Puyazos feria, San Isidro, Santander, St Vincent de Tyrosse, Orthez, Bilbao, Zaragoza and now this year’s Las Fallas), topical features and detailed reviews of each season. In addition, the site features book reviews, articles on toreo and ganaderías, profiles of toreros, translations, etc.
The key to all these pieces is in the site’s strapline - “informed commentary”. With that in mind, toros:toreros welcomes contributions from other aficionados, either in the form of articles or as commentary to the various published pieces. General feedback on the site is also welcome. You can contact me via the site’s ‘Contact’ page, while comments on individual articles can be made in the ‘Comments’ box below each piece.
If you enjoy reading articles on toros:toreros, please do tell other aficionados about the site. It would be great to see the number of subscribers grow even further.