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2016 Year End Blog Review

SQL Server - 2016 Year End Blog Review

2016 was my first full year of blogging. I was hoping to average one post per week, but came up short. 40 posts for the year still seems respectable. The slowest month was December with just one post. No big surprise there. I think most of us are less productive during the holidays. I went crazy in April and cranked out six posts.

What's Hot

"Popular" posts are often a surprise to me. Last year many of them were light on substance and not very long. Maybe the titles were more enticing than the others. Maybe I just got lucky with the SEO gods. Who knows? For 2016, I have a better understanding. Number one on the list got a bump from Brent Ozar. He tweeted about the article, and further put it in one of his weekly links newsletters. Both were huge--the post had more than twice the views of any other. (Thanks, Brent!) #3 shows up pretty high in Google search results for "Download SQL Server 2016 Express" and other variations. And #5 was promoted by PASS in one of their monthly newsletters.

  1. The Unfulfilled Promise of TRY...CATCH
  2. Stupid T-SQL Tricks
  3. Downloading SQL Server Express 2016
  4. Deadlock vs Blocking
  5. SQL Server Alerts and Conditional Responses


What's Not

It's always disappointing when a blog post doesn't get many views. Especially when the topic feels super-important. Or when you put a lot of time into it. Or when you feel like it's one of your best pieces of work. Sigh... Without further ado, here are my five most unloved posts of the year.

  1. My Favorite Answer
  2. SQL Server 2016: Data Driven Event Reaction
  3. Migrating Team Foundation Server
  4. The Intentional DBA
  5. SQL Server and Active Directory Groups


T-SQL Tuesday

2016 marked my first contributions to T-SQL Tuesday. I submitted three posts, and all of them got considerable traffic. If you're a new(er) blogger as I am, participating in T-SQL Tuesday is a good way to get some new eyes on your blog. Someone else comes up with the topic, which can feel like a gift when you've got writer's block. The SQL community is super supportive, too. If you've ever considered it, I encourage you to give it a go.

  1. T-SQL Tuesday #80 A SQL Server Feature Request
  2. T-SQL Tuesday #83 Systems Monitoring Systems
  3. T-SQL Tuesday #85 Alternatives To Backup & Restore


Looking Ahead

For 2017, I'm hoping to expand on the SQL Server Event Handling series, which has become a personal favorite. (There's a gaping hole that needs to be filled with a SQL Server Agent post.) There may be some Powershell code here and there. And Power BI is just too damn interesting to pass up. I'm sure I'll figure it out as the year unfolds. Thanks for visiting in 2016. I'll see ya' next year!

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