As we reach the end of 2023, this is our annual blog looking back over the year to see what were Pixalytics’ most popular blogs of the last twelve months. Regular readers of our annual review will know that despite being a remote sensing company, our most popular blogs are always, and we mean always, about how many satellites are orbiting the Earth! This year is no exception to that rule, but there are a number of other interesting posts that have proved very popular. The question is what was you favourite post of the year – do let us know – and have you read all of the most popular ones?

Our most viewed blog of the year was

1. How many satellites are orbiting the Earth in 2023? This post accounted for 28% of the total blog views on the website this year.

Out of the remaining top ten blogs, only the tenth most popular blog was also written this year. The remaining blogs were written in previous years, although a lot of them have strangely familiar titles!

2. How many satellites orbiting the Earth in 2020?
3. How many satellites orbiting the Earth in 2019?
4. How many satellites orbiting the Earth in 2022?
5. Joint UK-Kenyan project to support the sustainable supply of sand and aggregate using Earth Observation data?
6. Differences Between Optical & Radar Satellite Data
7. Earth Observation Satellites in 2022
8. What do colours mean in satellite imagery?
9. How many Earth Observation satellites are orbiting the Earth in 2021?
10. Practical Handbook of Remote Sensing Second Edition Released

Having written this blog a few times, the majority of these blogs are consistently in the top ten of most viewed blogs, even though number 8 on colours in satellite imagery was written nine years ago! The number seven viewed blog was itself written seven years ago. It’s great that old posts are still useful and valuable. Although, there are also some odd things, such as, why the post on the number of satellites orbiting the Earth in 2021 is low on the most read list – it’s actually the 18th most viewed post – not sure why that particular year isn’t popular!

We were also delighted to see that the tenth most popular post was the launch of the new Second Edition of our Practical Handbook of Remote Sensing. This handbook is something we’re incredibly proud of, and we hope it is useful to the wider community.

However, given this is a review of 2023, we thought you might be interested to the see the most read blogs written this year. You already know the top two, but the rest of the top ten are:

3. How many Earth Observation satellites orbiting in 2023?
4. Latest Earth Observation Satellite News (April)
5. Hyperspectral being Hyped Up
6. Artificial Intelligence in Earth Observation
7. Earth Observation Starts 2023 With A Bang
8. New Earth Observation Launches & Funding (February)
9. Latest Earth Observation Launches & Partnerships (April)
10. Satellite data …. but is it being used?

We know that the blogs in the early part of the year have time on their side to reach the top ten, but it is always interesting to see which posts have caught the imagination of readers – besides satellites orbiting the Earth!

Another interesting stat, at least to us, is to see how far and wide they are read. Looking at the WordPress stats in the last year we had views from 197 different counties/territories – this is 13% increase on the number of countries from last year! We know that this is technically IP addresses, rather than purely where the reader lives, but the spread is still impressive. The top ten countries IP addresses with views of the website are:

1. USA
2. India – moved up a place!
3. United Kingdom – unsurprising, but has dropped a place compared to 2022.
4. Canada
5. Australia
6. Germany
7. France
8. Italy
9. Netherlands
10. Spain

We’d like to thank everyone for taking the time to read and comment on the blogs, and we hope we can catch your eye a few times next year. We’ll continue to highlight the key activities happening in the industry and other items we find intriguing in the world of Earth Observation and satellite data.

Warmest wishes to everyone for a Happy New Year, and a healthy, and successful 2024!