It’s Been a Damned Great First Year!

So Kate, Steve and I launched Damned Connecticut a year ago — Jan. 1, 2009, to be exact — and we have to say, the response has been better than we could have ever expected!

I’m a little bit of a stats geek, and since Kate had the foresight to install Google Analytics from the start, we’ve been able to get an idea of how the site has been doing.

Let me throw some damned numbers at you (and for the record, all this data is anonymous — Google doesn’t provide any personal or private information on any visitor) —

• In the course of the last 12 months, we have had 73,000 unique visitors to Damned Connecticut, thanks in large part to our articles about The Haunting in Connecticut, which has been the most popular topic on the site.
• We’ve had visitors from 142 different countries, from Indonesia to Mongolia to Nigeria to Greenland to Ecuador! That’s 6 out of 7 continents — nothing from Antarctica … must be those danged Elder Things acting up again.
• Here in Connecticut, we’ve had visitors from all 169 towns in the state, which is pretty cool! Someone in Middlefield, in particular loves us — it’s hard to tell exactly, but it looks as though one visitor from that town actually checked out every single page on the site. (Shhh … Kate can’t even say that!)
• As mentioned, the most popular articles on Damned Connecticut have all been related to The Haunting in Connecticut, including our interview with Ray Garton and Steve’s Pulitzer Prize-nominated (sure!) Q&A with Nancy Boucher, aunt of the Snedeker family. The other top stories include our listings of Halloween events, the articles about Remington Arms (sparked by the “Ghost Adventures” visit there), Dunnellen Hall, Seaside Sanatorium and of course, the ever-loving, always-popular Melon Heads!

As you can see, it’s been a great first year here at Damned Connecticut, and we’re looking forward to continuing bringing you the best of all that’s weird, unexplained and unusual in Connecticut. We also have a few new things and surprises coming up in the next few months, as well as more supposedly haunted places and paranormal events, Fortean phenomena, damned interviews and all manner of curiosity.

Of course, the best part of launching this site has been the constant positive feedback we’ve gotten from our visitors. So many of you have been kind enough to tell us that you enjoy this site and our take on this stuff, which has been extremely gratifying — especially since we aren’t making any money off of this site. (Yet!) Seriously, we started this because we just love these kinds of things as much as you do, and continue to do it because of that.

Anyway, a HUGE thanks to all of you who have stopped by over the last year. Keep coming back as we continue add more and more content as we try to make it the best damned site in Connecticut!

So here’s hoping that this next year will be as fun and interesting as the last — thanks again!