My 2022 Year in Review

This is my year end review for the website to reflect on what I accomplished for the year. In the past, I made a lot of mazes, but this year I focused on making less mazes and each being of higher quality. I do this post each year and I keep the previous years data.…so 4 years of progress !!

Weekly (Daily) Mazes posted:

54 in 2022 vs. 640 in 2021 vs. 366 in 2020 vs. 365 in 2019

This was the big change for the website. Daily Mazes became weekly mazes. I did one each week, with a few weeks containing variations. Basically a few more than 52. For a detailed breakdown of my mazes of the week see the bottom section fo this post !

Blog Posts:

132 vs. 291 vs. 102 vs. 26

I cut back on the number of posts. Each weekly maze has it’s own blog post, and I still do maze movie reviews. I also spent some quality time updating any post from previous years that still had a high amount of traffic.

Name Mazes Made

13 vs. 4 vs. 247 vs. 1,499

This was one of my first projects. You can read about how I chose the names if you are interested. So 2022 and 2021 meant only doing requests when they were submitted, and not many were. Maybe it is because I have covered all the important names already ?

Books posted online:

2 vs. 12 vs. 8 vs. 19

In my first 3 years of the site I created a lot of free downloadable content. By my count that was 39 books, some of which have been retired or improved. When you make hundreds of mazes a year this makes sense. This year - not so much, just a few Christmas books I had never published before.

Books Published on Amazon:

0 vs. 0 vs. 3 (13 versions) vs. 0

I published my first 3 books on Amazon. I have 3 additional books sitting on the shelf, ready for publication if I come up with a marketing plan.

Website Traffic growth:

+47% vs LY, 2021: 242% vs LY, +1000%+ the PY

Hoping for even more growth in 2023 ! Each year growth gets a bit smaller as I grow the site.

Different countries visiting the site:

100 vs. 100 vs. 99 vs. 20

I think that the countries are actually higher than 100, but the analytics dashboard stops there ? Largest growth came from Jamaica, Chile, Lithuania, Saudi Arabia and Hungary.

Requests for Maze use:

About the same to slightly higher

YouTube Videos Created and watched:

Zero created, but views were up to LY by about 50%.

YouTube Subscribers:

Up. 2X LY technically.

RSS Subscribers to the blog:

Fluctuates during the year. Currently flat to LY.

Books Sold on Amazon:

Slightly down

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 !!

2022 Maze of the year voting results (thank you to all who voted):

And now the top 5 mazes of 2022 as voted on by you! Of course we had a tie at #5 so 6…let’s get to it !

• Maze of the year #5 (Tie) Sydney Opera House

• Maze of the year #5 (Tie) Chich’en Itza Pyramid

• Maze of the year #4 The Louvre

• Maze of the year #3 Sit and Spin Laundromat Sign

• Maze of the year #2 Epcot Center Spaceship Earth

• Maze of the year #1 Rock n Roll Hall of Fame Museum

Some statistics about the 52 mazes of the week that I featured this year:

• It includes 19 sign mazes, 16 building mazes, 5 monument mazes, 4 landscape mazes, 4 sculpture mazes and 4 miscellaneous mazes.

• 44 were based on things in the USA, with only 4 other countries represented: France, Australia, Mexico and UAE.

• 11 were made in black and white, 12 in both color and black and white versions, and 29 in full color !

Here are the 52 weekly mazes in order (with links to their downloads):

1. Horseshoe Bend

2. Monument Valley

3. The University of Alaska Museum of the North

4. Holiday Bowl Sign - Sign Maze section

5. Sit and Spin Laundromat Sign - Sign Maze section

6. Blue Mustang Sculpture

7. Alabama Theatre Sign - Sign Maze section

8. Abraham Lincoln Sculpture

9. Piet Mondrian tributes

10. The Alamo Mission

11. Agora Sign - Sign Maze section

12. Waterbury Clock Tower

13. Clayton Theatre

14. Rockford Tower

15. The Orange Shop Sign - Sign Maze section

16. Fox Theatre Sign - Sign Maze section

17. Tough Guy Lanes Sign - Sign Maze section

18. Miles the Monster Monument

19. Fresno Van Ness Avenue Sign

20. Cabana Inn Sign - Sign Maze section

21. Dolles Salt Water Taffy Sign - Sign Maze section

22. Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch

23. Wrigley Field Sign

24. Emo's Dairy Sign - Sign Maze section

25. National Center For Civil and Human Rights

26. Mesa Verde National Park Cliff Dwellings

27. Lincoln Memorial

28. Playhouse Square Sign - Sign Maze section

29. Thread City Sculpture

30. Grandview Hotel Sign - Sign Maze section

31. Ponce De Leon Lighthouse

32. The Louvre

33. First Baptist Sign - Sign Maze section

34. Bok Tower

35. Rock n Roll HOF

36. Key West Point Marker

37. New London Lighthouse

38. Hoover Dam

39. Epcot Center

40. Spillway Lanes Sign - Sign Maze section

41. Don Carter Lanes Sign - Sign Maze section

42. Sydney Opera House

43. Castle Craig

44. La Catrina

45. Air Force Cadet Chapel

46. Free Stamp Sculpture

47. Nampa Rollerdome Sign - Sign Maze section

48. Burj Al Arab

49. Chichen Itza Pyramid

50. Welcome to Las Vegas Sign - Sign Maze section

51. Christmas Tree

52. Large Snowflake

Maze of the Week #52 - Large Snowflake Maze

I hope you had a great holiday and are able to enjoy some time off. My final weekly maze of the year, weekly maze #52 is a VERY LARGE Snowflake Maze.

If you are looking for a good collection or book for Kids that includes many different types of holiday mazes you can find them here.

The Maze: Black and white. Very large. Colorable. A LONG solution !

Snowflake Maze

I hope you enjoy the maze. This Snowflake Maze download is available

Coming next week:

A new year !

Maze of the Week #51 - Christmas Tree Maze

Happy Holidays. Maze of the week #51 features a large maze of a Christmas Tree. I have made holiday mazes before but this is the largest and most difficult one I have made of a tree. If you are looking for a good collection or book for Kids that includes many different types of holiday mazes you can find them here.

The Maze: One version. I left the colors light so this can be colored and decorated as you would like !

I will mention this is a LARGE maze as you can see below…you really need to zoom in to see the pathways ! Print on large paper !

Christmas Tree Maze

I hope you enjoy the maze. A download of the maze is available.

Coming next week:

Another holiday themed maze, and our final maze of the year !

Maze of the Week #49 - Temple of Kukulcán Maze

Maze of the week #49 features a maze of the Temple of Kukulcán at Chichen Itza in Mexico. The more you learn about this pyramid, the more amazing it becomes. The acoustics mimic the sounds of local birds. There is a feathered serpent that crawls down the pyramid near the equinoxes. It has a hidden component (no spoilers) inside it. I want to visit ! You can read about it here, but I suggest you invest the time in the episode below !

There have been 90+ episodes of the TV Series Unearthed and the very first featured this pyramid, a wonderful honor. If you have time to sit and watch the full episode (43 minutes) it is worth it.

Let’s look at a photo of the pyramid:

Temple of Kukulcán Ewen Roberts flickr

The Maze: One version. Black and White. Large paper is better to solve. In fact because I went all out on the details of individual stones….it is even difficult to tell this is a maze.

Temple of Kukulcán Maze

I hope you enjoy the maze. Download is available on the homepage. I do maze commissions if you like my work.

Coming next week:

A maze of a famous sign