Well here we are at the end of another spoiler season with the final spoiler of the series due to land later tonight. And those of you who have been around for the last few years know this is the point where I like to say a few words of thanks.
Firstly I want to thank those of you reading this. I’m fully aware that the majority of visitors to this site come, read the 2nd paragraph of the spoiler post and then go away again. You people reading this are the people who actually read and engage with my content and help make the communities here, on Facebook and on Twitter what they are.
Next I want to talk about donations. The donations button was introduced last series as a way of allowing me to experiment with a number of hosting solutions to try and find something that could cope with the site’s growing needs that had outgrown everything I could afford to throw at it. Traffic to this site has skyrocketed over the last few years and over the course of this series the site has received 3.8Million views (an increase of 52% from 2017) from 770k individual people (an increase of 39% from 2017). At its busiest weekend the site received 675k page views from 220k individual people in a 24 hour period
This is a lot of page views and dealing with it has been a unique challenge but one that I have met. With the exception of two small 10 minute periods one of which I quickly adapted to and the other was down to human error over the last couple of weeks the site has remained up at peak times throughout the entirety of the 2018 series and this is the first series since 2014 I can say that.
A lot of that is thanks to you guys. My hosting costs (which vary depending how much power I have to throw at the site and how many of you come to visit the site) for the whole of the 2018 series will approach £1000 but the donations button helped towards these costs. I just want to add that I’m not getting rich from the donations button. If everyone who visited the site donated £1 then yes I would be getting very rich but it hasn’t been used anywhere near that much but I am very grateful to everyone who has donated and I’ve received donations varying from 1p (which whilst I am grateful for I should add that paypal claimed the whole of that donation in fees) to £100 and I am thankful to each and every one of you who donated to help cover my spiralling site costs. If you want to get a last minute donation in you can use THIS LINK or the button below
Whilst the donation button will remain on the site I just want to stress for a minute that use of it is entirely optional. This site will always remain free to use for the majority of users. It is entirely optional to donate and should only be done if you can afford to do so and there should be no obligation on anyone to donate.
Next up it’s sources and things have worked a little differently this series compared to previous ones. I wont lie, previous series I’ve taken the spoiler that’s published elsewhere if you know where to look and reproduced it on this site. It’s not something I set out to do but something that got accidentially thrust on me when I gained search ranking for the spoiler in 2014 and I’ve been riding the wave ever since. But this series has been very different. I’ve been working very closely with a couple of other spoiler sources and we’ve worked together this series sourcing moles, providing each other with the spoiler when we’ve been struggling for sources and this series more than any series it has felt more like being part of a community that we have all contributed towards. All the sources I work with have the same ethos as me that the spoiler should be available to those who seek it out but kept away from those who like to wait for the not live results show
Finally I just want to thank those of you who supported me in the press attention last month. I posted the children in need spoiler for those who wanted to know and in spite of me taking steps to prevent the inevitable news articles claiming I could be taking revenue away from Children in Need those articles still arrived because it was a slow news day on Remembrance Sunday apparently. I was in a bad place after them as I really don’t like being the centre of attention in the way this job has thrust upon me nor do I like being made out to be something I’m not and a lot of your positive comments helped get me through that, then sock it to the press when I wrote the Christmas special spoiler and that resulted in fewer news articles about the Christmas Special Spoiler. Guess they all found newsworthy articles about Donald Trump or Brexit to write about instead.
Well that’s all the thanks done so what is left is to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2019 when The Strictly Spoiler will be back. If the BBC don’t do something crazy like a live results show. Which they probably won’t!
