PreserveRamapo.org–-the Numbers

The website signed up with a service provider back on May 30, 2003. It exists today as www.preserveramapo.org and www.preserveramapo.com, and www.preserve-ramapo.org. The last, with a hyphen, was registered so the magnetic bumper stickers would point correctly to our home page.

In order to present a complete picture of the traffic on the site, I have listed some totals and some averages. So here goes:

Last week (May 21-27) the total number of visitors was 1,417.

The average number of visitors each week over the three years has been lifted substantially by recent numbers.

On average, the slowest day of the week is usually Saturday (average 110.30 visitors).

Usually the busiest day of the week is Tuesday (average 162.57 visitors). Incidentally, that is true for most website and e-mail listservs. I’ve never seen a completely satisfactory reason for it, but that’s the reality.

The total number of visitors for this month (May 2006) is 4,867 with one day to go.

Now for the bigger numbers.

The total number of visits according to our web hosting company is 42,852.

The number you see at the bottom of our home page lists only 32,388, but that’s because it is a counter I set up after the site had been up for more than a year. I have been tempted to make the correction, but to jump the number by 10,000 would certainly look very fishy. I have decided to wait until the redesign for the page is completed and I’ll make the change then (with an explanation, of course).

It’s interesting to watch these numbers react to news and situations. For instance, during last year’s election, the August (‘05) number was a modest 482 visitors. The September number jumped to 2,259, October rocketed to 8,737, and November slowed a little to 7,560.

A visit is a logon to the site by a unique computer (identified by a machine number). If that machine logs on a second time during the day, it is counted as another visit. A hit is the opening of a page or click on a photo or button, and one visitor can produce a number of hits during one visit. The total number of hits counted by the provider is 466,061.

I hope you find these numbers encouraging. I do, and I expect the curve to continue to improve if the past is any indicator. You can help a lot by just telling someone who doesn’t know about the site to make a visit. And be sure also to tell them that if they find the information useful, they can sign on to receive e-mail updates as stories are added.

Thanks for you support in the past, and don’t forget, the opposition depends on an uninformed, uninvolved electorate. It’s our job to change that.

Michael Castelluccio