I guess they're not all spammers, then!
Re the Merlin Locations website...
I am constantly astonished by how much spam the site attracts via comments! I used WordPress to build the site, and luckily that comes with the Akismet plug-in, which catches 99.9% of the spam... cos honestly I don't think I could cope otherwise. I suppose I should be flattered that someone out there thinks we're worth spamming!
I am assured that the Count per Day visitor counter is supposed to only count 'real human' interaction, but given the above volume it's been hard to feel secure about that... We're getting pretty good stats, but I wasn't sure quite how proud to feel.
And then I realised! {light bulb moment}
The following graph of visitor numbers says it all, really. It's tootling along at a fairly good rate - we were averaging between 300 and 400 visits per day before the new season began. And then pow! The first spisode screens on 1 October, and the visitor numbers totally peak. (The visitor numbers are in red, and the number of page reads is in blue.) And, well, of course that's real people! Cos they're reacting to a 'real world' event. Hurrah!
This is interesting - to me and to any other stats-minded geeks out there... We get a definite peak on each Merlin Day - and that happened last season, too. However, the third episode, which was very Camelot-centric, was merely a foothill. That previous week, however, was when I'd posted my interview with Alice Troughton, and it's good to see that visitor numbers continued quite high throughout those seven days.
By the way, I've been running the visitor counter since December 2009, and 1 October 2011 has been the biggest day yet in terms of both visitors and reads!
Well, well, well.
Meanwhile... I created a new funky hedgehog background for the site, and have included it in the community, too. I hope you like it! I thought we were due for a bit of a revamp, and that will do for now. :-) I hope!
I am constantly astonished by how much spam the site attracts via comments! I used WordPress to build the site, and luckily that comes with the Akismet plug-in, which catches 99.9% of the spam... cos honestly I don't think I could cope otherwise. I suppose I should be flattered that someone out there thinks we're worth spamming!
I am assured that the Count per Day visitor counter is supposed to only count 'real human' interaction, but given the above volume it's been hard to feel secure about that... We're getting pretty good stats, but I wasn't sure quite how proud to feel.
And then I realised! {light bulb moment}
The following graph of visitor numbers says it all, really. It's tootling along at a fairly good rate - we were averaging between 300 and 400 visits per day before the new season began. And then pow! The first spisode screens on 1 October, and the visitor numbers totally peak. (The visitor numbers are in red, and the number of page reads is in blue.) And, well, of course that's real people! Cos they're reacting to a 'real world' event. Hurrah!
This is interesting - to me and to any other stats-minded geeks out there... We get a definite peak on each Merlin Day - and that happened last season, too. However, the third episode, which was very Camelot-centric, was merely a foothill. That previous week, however, was when I'd posted my interview with Alice Troughton, and it's good to see that visitor numbers continued quite high throughout those seven days.
By the way, I've been running the visitor counter since December 2009, and 1 October 2011 has been the biggest day yet in terms of both visitors and reads!
Well, well, well.
Meanwhile... I created a new funky hedgehog background for the site, and have included it in the community, too. I hope you like it! I thought we were due for a bit of a revamp, and that will do for now. :-) I hope!