This is my year end review for the website to reflect on what I accomplished for the year. I do this post each year and I keep the previous years data.…so 5 years of progress !! Each year things are a bit different. I have already written a posts that summarize the best blog posts of the year. Plus I have the results of the maze of the year voting at the bottom of the post !
Maze of the Year Finalists:
And now the data for the year:
Weekly (Daily) Mazes posted:
2023: 52 - Mazes of the week - see all 52 in this video !
2022: 54 - Mazes of the week
2021: 640 - daily mazes with some Spanish language variations
2020: 366 - daily mazes
2019: 365 - daily mazes
I did do variations of many mazes this year, but typically only posted 1 version on the homepage. I’m happy with weekly mazes vs. daily.
Blog Posts:
2023: 192
2022: 132 (120 remain on the site)
2021: 291 (207 remain on the site)
2020: 102 (85 remain on the site)
2019: 26 (12 remain on the site)
I kept a good schedule for most of the year and plan to continue that into the future ! I have also deleted over 100 old posts to clean up my blog index and consolidate some of the topics.
Name Mazes Made
2023: 104
2022: 13
2021: 4
2020: 247
2019: 1,499
Since 2021 I have only been doing doing maze name requests when they were submitted, and not many were. Hopefully this is because I have many names covered already !
Books posted online:
2023: 0
2022: 2
2021: 12
2020: 8
2019: 19
With the change in site content there are no longer mazes available for books.
Books Published on Amazon:
2023: 0
2022: 0
2021: 13
2020: 0
2019: 0
I (still) have 3 additional books sitting on the shelf, ready for publication if I come up with a marketing plan.
Website Traffic growth:
2023: + 36% LY
2022: + 47% LY
2021: + 242% LY
2020: +1000% PL
2019: **
And the bigger you get the harder it is to grow even larger in the future. Unless SEO suddenly likes me (or doesn’t).
Different countries visiting the site:
2023: 169 - I changed how I track this and think the 100 below might have been inaccurate. Out of 195 or so depending on the list you look at.
2022: 100
2021: 100
2020: 99
2019: 20
YouTube Views:
2023: 2,245
2022: 303
2021: 264
The channel is not doing well. While I could stop making videos…nah. See my 2024 outlook for updates on this.
YouTube Subscribers:
2023: 17
2022: 6
2021: 3
Wow. Low. A percentage would make this look much better, but the raw numbers are more accurate.
RSS Subscribers to the blog:
Fluctuates during the year. Currently - 66% from peak this Summer and -15% LY (after a big rise). So I need to start writing about subjects that people enjoy again.
And while we are on the blog:
My 10 best blog posts of the year:
THE 10 BEST MAZE-MAKING DESIGN TEMPLATES TO GET YOU STARTED
I saw an opportunity to expand an earlier post I had written with new material and updates. This post gives you 20 free downloads of different templates that are halfway complete with instructions on how to complete them and make a maze ! 10 of those are holiday themed and great for kids !
AN EXPLORATION INTO AI IMAGE MAZE GENERATION
Post #1 in my series that kicked off how text to image generators did creating mazes. If you click on this post you can read how each website did until you get to my summary….
WHAT I LEARNED USING AI TO MAKE MAZE ART
No surprise that this post does well. Earlier in the year I experimented with a variety of AI text to image generators to see how they compared on making mazes. This is post #15 in the series which summarizes what I found.
THE 10 MOST FAMOUS LABYRINTHS FROM AROUND THE WORLD
Despite being a website dedicated to mazes and labyrinths I had never pulled together a list of famous labyrinths. The list is purposefully a bit quirky and contains places that most lists would not consider.
Part of the AI series I mentioned above, this is the most popular site that people want to read about. A bit of a spoiler, DeepAI is not very good at making mazes, especially compared to other sites.
EXPLORING DIFFERENT WAYS TO SOLVE A MAZE
I initially made a similar post where I just wanted to ask people (using a poll) how they liked to solve mazes. This took me down a rabbit hole of research where I learned about things like Trémaux's Algorithm and the Pledge Algorithm Method.
MAKING MAZES WITH AI: AI IMAGE GENERATOR
I am going straight to the spoiler - I would use this site for inspiration to make a maze, but not much more.
MAZE OF THE WEEK #54 - HEYDAR ALIYEV CENTER MAZE
It is not always the most famous buildings that do the most traffic to the site (but it usually is). Located in Baku, Azerbaijan I have gotten notes thanking me for making it from the country.
10 PLACES WHERE YOU CAN BUY SPECTACULAR MAZE ART
Exactly what it says. Some of the biggest art sites have maze art, and some are lacking. Find out who is who here.
THE SURPRISING BENEFITS OF SOLVING MAZES
Everyone wants to know if mazes are good for your brain. Yes, yes, they are as explained here.
Maze of the Year Results:
ALMOST - Museo Soumaya Maze - this maze has my best solution, and got a lot of votes, but just missed out on the top 5!
5. Templo de Sangre de Cristo Maze
So that concludes the year. Thanks again for your votes. All mazes are available for download on the site.
Mazes of the Week 53 - 104 - A Review of 2023's mazes
I wanted to give everyone an overview of all the mazes of the week that were featured on the site this year (#’s 53-104). If you want to watch the mazes I made a video showing each (shown below).
Some statistics about the 52 mazes I featured this year:
It includes 26 building mazes, 9 monument mazes, 6 sign mazes, 3 character mazes, 2 animal mazes, 2 scene mazes, an item, map, planet and a ship.
17 mazes were from the USA, 8 mazes in Mexico, 4 India, 4 England, 2 Germany, 2 Canada, as well as mazes from Azerbaijan, China, Iceland, Myanmar, Scotland, Spain and Saudi Arabia.
12 were made in black and white, 7 in both color and black and white versions, and 33 in full color !
Here are the 52 weekly mazes in order (with links to their downloads). Because of the numbering system add 52 if you want to really see the MOTW#:
MY TOP 5 YOUTUBE VIDEOS FROM 2023:
I started to make videos of my Mazes of the week being made and solved on my YouTube channel. Previously I only had some old (private) videos on there that where accessible from my How to Make a Maze / How to Make a Labyrinth blog posts. During the year I made those private videos public despite them being poorer quality than I would like.
All of this leads to my 5 biggest YouTube videos of the year:
#1 Video - The Making of a Hidden Message Maze
#2 Video - How to Make a Classical 7 Circuit Labyrinth
#3 Video - How to Digitally Draw an 11 Circuit Classical Labyrinth
And now the 2 best Maze of the Week videos, which surprised me:
#4 Video - Welcome To Colorful Colorado Sign One Minute Maze
#5 Video - The Moon One Minute Maze
So that is my year in review. I learned a lot. I hope to continue growing the site, making more books, and of course posting some interesting mazes !!
Stop back in 2 days to read my plan for 2024 !