Site Traffic

[painekiller]

OK Keith, any updates on volume?

[Keith]

Originally Posted by painekiller

OK Keith, any updates on volume?

Yesterday the server processed more traffic than the day before, meaning four straight days with a new record. Checking the unique visitor count through about midday today, we were just about at Thursday's pace, so it will be close to make it five in a row.

Under normal conditions, site traffic is busiest on Mondays and Tuesdays, so to continue the build through the end of this week is encouraging. That trend usually happened at HPF twice a year - now, during the buildup and first couple days of camp, and again in the days leading up to and including draft weekend.

On a side note... I don't mean to over-emphasize our traffic. We have plenty of capacity, and there aren't revenue building click-thru ads here. I don't spam other sites (and appreciate not being spammed in return), so the important thing is having the community of fans that we have in here already.

[Keith]

Updating an earlier post in this thread, we actually had six consecutive record days in late July (and seven of eight).

For August, our monthly unique visitor count has already set a new record with more than a week to go. Each month has had more unique visitors than the one before it, so I suppose another new record isn't a surprise, but it is another sign that our community continues to grow. Long past our first million hits, we ought to keep ticking up to our next million pretty quick (and yes, much of that traffic is from lurkers here in the forums. Our lurker to registered user ratio here is amazing. Smile and wave boys, smile and wave... )

Given the newness of the URL, nearly all of our traffic is organic and bookmarked (which is nice... cuts down on trolls, spam, etc.), and compared with other sites with big forums, our traffic is still pretty small. Relatively speaking, we get very little traffic from search engines and other outside sources, though I'm sure that will change and increase some over time. While we don't get a ton of linked traffic into the site, ItB.com has been linked by several other friendly sites (as I'm sure many of you can attest firsthand), and I'd like to thank a few of them individually here (in no particular order).

Matt and BFD at DGDB&D
The guys at BattleRedBlog
Steph at AOLFanHouse
Mods and posters at TexansTalk.com
Mike and crew at ProFootballTalk.com

Thanks!

[Keith]

One more friendly blogger I'd like to thank... Alan Burge, who now has his own site on Examiner.com. A little history - - Alan was the originator of the salary cap page on HPF.com, something I was quite thankful for since I was about to start it myself and didn't want the hassle.

http://www.examiner.com/x-778-Houston-Texans-Examiner

[Mike]

Since you do not partake in shameless self promotion, here is another plug for you regular peeps to contribute to the site, to keep it advertiser free. There is a link on the page, and I am sure Keith appreciates the support from the "regulars" in defraying the cost of maintaining the site.

[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.

[Keith]

One more thing... Had some questions about the lack of new content after the Bengals win. I'd been out of pocket since Sunday for my day job unable to refresh the site. Rest assured, we'll be business as usual again this Sunday.

...Not that the lack of a Bengals recap had any negative impact to site traffic, lol.