There is a deep well of IT certification content here at CertMag.com, and each year it gets a little deeper. With new articles four days a week most weeks during the year, that's roughly 200 new articles every year. Some are articles previously published in Certification Magazine, but about three-quarters of what you get here on the website is original content.

No doubt there are some of you out there who read everything that shows up here. (Or at least we hope there's no doubt of that. And if you really are one of those hardcore CertMag readers, then gold star for you. We'd like to shake your hand and buy you a drink.) The average drop-in visitor, however, probably doesn't get even a real taste of everything that shows up here in a calendar year.

That's why recaps like this are so helpful. There's no need to wonder what you've missed: Other visitors to the site have already voted with their mouse clicks, and curated a list of the most compelling articles to appear on the site in 2019. We're going to do this in three installments, comprising the 30 most-read new articles of the year.

Today we're bringing you the top of the list, our 10 most popular articles of 2019:

1) Salary Survey 2019: An all-new Salary Survey 75: "There's no better bang for your buck, in other words, than to spend it on something that increases the sum total of your smarts and skills. Something like, for example, an IT certification." (by CertMag Staff)

2) Salary Survey 2019: Certification giveth salary, taketh it away: "In the 1983 techno-thriller film WarGames, computer-savvy teen David Lightman (played by actor Matthew Broderick a few years before his big breakout in Ferris Bueller's Day Off) accidentally discovers the U.S. Department of Defense while attempting to hack a game company." (by CertMag Staff)

3) Salary Survey 2019: Certification leads to improved performance, increased earning power: "Certification can also make you more attractive to potential employers. More than 73 percent of survey respondents either agree (40.5 percent) or strongly agree (33.2 percent) that they've experienced greater demand for their skills since becoming certified." (by CertMag Staff)

4) Fortinet fights the skills gap with Network Security Expert training: "Closing the cybersecurity skills gap is critical, but it is a feat that is much too big for one sector or organization to take on alone. Beyond providing training on their products and solutions, cybersecurity vendors have an obligation to close the cybersecurity skills gap at large." (by Rob Rashotte)

5) Salary Survey Extra: Average salary for certified IT workers by U.S. state: "Out of the more than 4,900 certified IT professionals to take the survey at the end of last year, 55 percent live mostly in 43 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. (We got dramatically limited participation from seven states: Maine, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.)" (by CertMag Staff)

6) A rebooted CCSP certification exam is coming: "It may not seem like 2015 was that long ago, but change is constant in the information technology (IT) realm. Let's take a look at the changes that have occurred in the cloud security landscape over the past four years and how those changes are reflected in the content of the revised CCSP exam." (by Mike Chapple)

7) Salary Survey 2019: Certified tech pros are getting older, changing jobs: "Some might argue that all of those new and relatively new arrivals are merely the vanguard of a rising generation of IT workers flooding in from colleges and high schools. Weighing rather heavily against that line of reasoning, however, is the fact that most of those who responded to the survey are not spring chickens." (by CertMag Staff)

8) Salary Survey Extra: Do older certified IT workers get bigger salaries?: "On the other hand, if tech veterans can hang around long enough to grow old in IT, there are a couple of levels on which they can expect to have a decided advantage over their younger counterparts. Actual work experience, over and over again, is cited as being the most compelling indicator of IT capability." (by CertMag Staff)

9) Fortinet combats cybersecurity skills gap with training for veterans: "Securing the digital landscape around the world requires critical security technology innovation, coupled with the effective deployment, integration, and ongoing maintenance and optimization of these solutions. And every step of that process requires well-trained professionals who are committed to curbing the ever-expanding landscape of cybersecurity threats." (by Jay Garcia)

10) ITDRC volunteers enhance their IT skills through disaster recovery assistance: "Founded in 2008, ITDRC is a nationwide, volunteer-driven non-profit 501(c)(3) with more than 1,500 technical professionals throughout the United States and its territories. It deploys volunteer tech teams and resources to impacted communities after catastrophic events to provide emergency lifelines to responders and survivors." (by Steve Linthicum)

Curious to know which articles just missed the Top 10? Click here for most popular articles Nos. 11 through 20, and click here for Nos. 21 through 30.