Same same, but different

As I'm waiting for the bells to chime in the new year, I'm running my fingers down over the stats of the past year, and trying to digest what I see into some kind of most read list for 2014.
One thing is immediately obvious. Just as last year, the year before that and actually all the years that section as existed, the videos are by far the most popular part of the site. More than half of all pages viewed on The Global FlyFisher come from the video section. I will return to that in a moment, but before that I will look at all the other content that we have and find the most popular articles from the past year.

The top ten list of popular articles looks like this and contains both new and old material.

#10 Tying with CDC

Hans Weilenmann's excellent and thorough coverage of the CDC feather.

#9 Beginner's Buzzer

An intro to tying simple buzzers.

#8 Shark's Caddis

The fantastcic imitation of a caddis larva by Bulgarian Radoslav Kiskinov.

#7 LCR's

A coverage of the useful Light Curing Resins.

#6 Bergman

Tom Giglio's 2006 article on converting Ray Bergman wet flies to streamers.

#5 How to fish with more than one fly

A treatise on fishing with more than one fly on the leader.

#4 Perfect Woolly

A killer pattern revisited by German Raoul Kempkes.

#3 Build a Flexible Fly Tying Bench

A great addition to your tying: Ole Willers' bench with room for vice, tools, materials and more.

#2 First Setup

Simple and easy instructions in spooling backing and line on your reel for the first time.

#1 Knots

Yes, knots. Simply knots for the flyfisherman

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If we hover a bit higher and look at sections rather than single articles, the picture is much as it has been before. Again the video section is left out and the front page on the site as well as the video section front page also receive a high amount of traffic, but that's no surprise, since they are people's way into the site.

These are the top ten most popular sections in the Global FlyFisher.

#10 Forum

It's not the busiest forum on the web, but still quite popular.

#9 Search function

It's a big site and the search function is naturally very popular.

#8 Shrimp theme

Shrimps are popular, and this theme section has links to most of our shrimp articles.

#7 Wallpapers

Nice pictures for your computer screen.

#6 Rod building

It's not a section that sees many new articles, but it's still very popular.

#5 Fish Better

Instructions on how to improve your fishing has always been popular.

#4 Gallery

Articles with pictures and articles about taking pictures.

#3 Streamers

The good old New England Streamers section is still riding high.

#2 Tie Better

Tying tips are popular as always.

#1 Patterns

Fly patters is and has always been our most popular section - until the videos came. It's still best of the rest.

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The video section gets its own coverage. It's in a league by itself, but also has its internal list of popular pages and sections. Below you see the most visited pages in the video section in 2014.

#10 Videos by Giancarlo Donninelli

Giancarlo asked to have his videos removed earlier this year (hence no link), but managed to get on the top 10 before that.

#9 All videos by alphabet

A simple list sorted by title.

#8 All videos by date

Videos chronologically ordered.

#7 Videos by Hans Weilenmann

Dutch Hans Weilenmann has contributed more than 150 videos.

#6 Videos by Jim Misura

Jim is by far the most productive contributor with more than 500 videos.

#5 Originators

A list of the people who have contributed videos.

#4 Most viewed today

The list of the most viewed videos since last midnight.

#3 Best videos

The videos voted best by our viewes.

#2 Videos by Davie McPhail

Scottish Davie McPhail has a high star with the viewers.

#1 Fly tying videos

The fly tying videos are the most popular.

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The top ten list of the most popular individual videos of 2014 looks like this:
#10 Wet Fly New Zealand Fishing
#9 Northern Midge (Dry Fly)
#8 Blue Wing Olive Nymph
#7 Spatsizi trailer
#6 Once in a Blue Moon
#5 Presentation techniques for trout
#4 March Brown Dry Fly
#3 Sea Trout Secrets 5, Spin Fishing
#2 Last Cast On Lost Creek
#1 Damsels in Distress

You can see the all time most popular videos here and on this page you can see some general facts about the whole site, amongst other things that we ended 2014 with a bang serving a little more than 3 million pages to about half a million visitors in December alone.

Happy New Year, and may your 2015 be rich in fishing, fish and great experiences.