April 11, 2010
That Long Slow Upward Climb
Things cooled a bit after the healthcare vote, but I thought I'd take a moment to note that March was Anchor Rising's most trafficked month ever:
For the uninitiated, "visits" are calculated as unique visitors coming back during a time not less than an hour. In other words, one person downloading a dozen pages within a half hour is just one visit. Another person coming back every hour on the hour counts each time. This particular software also filters out robots and other non-people visitors for the final count.
The reason I pay attention to this software is that it's been consistent where our other methods are erratic, even though they'd permit us to make greater claims. The reason I track visits is that "unique visitors" doesn't capture reader devotion, and "page views" and "hits" are susceptible to design tricks. (If a site gets you to download a lot of files just to view its main page, it can claim extra pages and hits.)
The key point, though, is that we continue to grow, and we're very glad to have you reading, supporting, and challenging us. If you'd also like to help us move things to the next level, please consider financial support, as well:
Subscriptions of $0.25 per day (payments of $7.60 per month) and donations of any size may be made using credit cards via PayPal (no PayPal account is necessary) by clicking the following:
Those who would prefer the more direct route of checks or money orders can make them out to Anchor Rising and send them to:
Anchor Rising
P.O. Box 751
Portsmouth, RI 02871
For advertising, whether along the sides of the blog or as one of these here Community Crier posts, email Justin.
Some of that data seems to conflict with Quantcast, but maybe it is because of a shorter time period.
http://www.quantcast.com/anchorrising.com
It appears you get more traffic when the rabid right gets fired up - for instance, during Obamas elections and after the health care bill.
Quantcast shows the biggest boost right about at Obamas swearing in. Perhaps you were ranting big time back then, or the right just needed solace.
Now, if only you'd get some google ads on board and remove that ugly mug from the top of the page, you might be able to make a few bucks!
Oh, that March increase? That's me!
You can thank me later.
I remain skeptical about claims to measure Web site traffic from "inferences," as Quantcast claims to do.
As I said, we have several server-side programs that track our statistics based on what moves off the actual server that hosts our Web site. Even given that homogeneous data input, the variation is huge, adding to my skepticism about sources that claim to track Web statistics without direct server access. They have their uses, to be sure, mainly with site-to-site comparisons and trends, although even there, they in part measure efforts to game the system through multiple files per page and multiple dead-ended links around the Internet and so on.
As for regular trends, election seasons always bring a bump. The last presidential race was exciting for a number of reasons.
And by the way, your first comment was made on March 29, and our readership has decreased since then. I attribute the difference to the lull after the healthcare debate, but I can't stop you from feeling a perverse satisfaction about driving people away, if you're so inclined.
Posted by: Justin Katz at April 11, 2010 7:33 PMJustin, Justin - c'mon, you know:
1. I never lie.
2. I am always right.
http://www.dustinthelight.com/rays/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=9639
That is March 9th. I'm sure you can find some from before then......
So, yes, I will take credit.
Posted by: Stuart at April 11, 2010 8:16 PMThe check is in the mail, literally.
Posted by: Will at April 11, 2010 8:22 PMSorry. Sunday night mistake --- viewing an abbreviated list. Your first comment was on March 3.
Presumably the steady increase of 10,000 additional monthly visits year-on-year was merely in anticipation of the arrival of Stuart.
Posted by: Justin Katz at April 11, 2010 8:24 PMNo kidding - I tend to bring success with me where ever I go!
One of those midas touch deals.
Prediction- when Dan leaves you will see another bump up.......
:-)
Justin, you guys are doing an important service for the freedom-loving citizens of Rhode Island. I think it will not be long before a tipping point is reached and there will be a quantum leap in readership/participation on AR.
Posted by: BobN at April 11, 2010 9:10 PMStuart,
Your attempt to present as a unique insight the observation that activity on a political blog increases when political items are in the news, makes me wonder...
...are you one of those guys who calls up sports radio stations and demands to know why they are spending so much airtime talking about sports?