Site Traffic

[Keith]

Just an effort to keep everyone up to date on the site...

Our traffic dropped from August to September by roughly 30% - - though the # of unique visitors remained level. A drop like this is somewhat normal (at least related to my HPF.com experiences) once the season gets going, but the drop was steeper than normal, most likely because many of us (including ItB.com's headquarters) were dealing with the after effects of Ike. On HPF, we had a very similar pattern after Rita.

October's traffic is up from September, but the # of unique visitors dropped a little (~10%). It has been a slow build this month. My hunch is that this is due in some part to Ike but also because the team started 0-4. Losing is actually good in the short-term for traffic, but in the long-term continued losing keeps the casual lurkers away.

As I said though, with each win (and each week further from Ike's landfall), the traffic has been building. In fact, this week's traffic has been as good as it was during the early parts of August, so most of us seem to be back in the fold. Welcome back!

One other note... site donations have slowed to a halt, which is okay for now, but expect me to re-fire the campaign in the spring. We're paid up through March or so thanks to your contributions and my start-up funds, but the next round of semi-annual fees will be due just before the draft. To learn more about how to contribute, click here.