Yes! I made it into the Bibliobloggers Top 50 for February! I jumped to #35, with an Alexa rank of 1001510. This is up from #102 in January, as I reported here, with an Alexa rank of 2591564.

What made the difference? Well, no doubt some linking to popular blogs helped my cause, and being linked to by some of them probably helped even more. But more to the point is that for the first time in several months I have actually been blogging regularly, nearly every day in February (except Sundays when I usually take a deliberate break) with a total of 37 posts in the month.

In fact the number of visitors to this blog has increased in every one of the last nine weeks, from a low of 472 in Christmas week to 1518 in the last week of February. This is back to the levels of last October, before my wedding got in the way of my blogging. Of the 1518, 527 were visits to my blog home page. These figures exclude those who read my posts through RSS etc feeds, or on Facebook where they appear as notes.

Of course another reason for my increased rankings is that I deliberately chose some controversial subjects. In the first week of February I took on atheists (149 views in 27 days) and Roman Catholics (40 views in 26 days). In the second week I took on Calvinists about faith as a gift (81 views in 21 days) and made my first foray against Reform (106 views in 20 days). I started the third week by moving my attack on Reform up a notch by accusing them of hypocrisy (190 views in 14 days), followed by a first update on Michael Reid (54 views in 13 days) and a report of Benny Hinn’s divorce (56 views in 10 days). Then in the fourth week I scooped the blogosphere with the news that Michael Reid had lost his unfair dismissal claim (52 views in 7 days), and started a discussion on “husband of one wife” (71 views in 7 days) which is still continuing.

Meanwhile since 10th February I have been continuing my review series on Adrian Warnock’s book Raised with Christ (233 views between the 7 parts so far, probably just one more part to come).

The last few days of the month were quieter, partly because I was busy with other things. But it is also interesting that there is much less interest when I try to be conciliatory rather than controversial, as in this post (15 views in 5 days). Perhaps this is one reason why I tend to write rather controversially – although I try to do so not with hostility but with Christian love.

Will this increased activity and higher ratings continue in March? I have started the new month with another controversial post. But I don’t know if I have the energy to keep this up, or the continuing flow of new ideas – although most of my posts are quick reactions to what I read elsewhere. Also my real non-virtual life may be getting busier, which could put a brake on things.

So in March I may even make it into Alexa’s top million blogs, which I was just 1510 places outside in February. At least I think that’s what their numbers mean. Or maybe this blog will just start to gradually fade away again.

Can I honestly say that I don’t care about these ratings? I would like to – but then it is nice to be popular and to feel that people are taking seriously, or at least reading, what I write.