Re: Website and Statistics

["Robert Pries " <101p@rewrite.aisboard.org>]

Thanks John for the data for the AIS website. Despite the problems that you
hope to fix with the menu change as I pointed out in my posts the AIS website
is doing VERY well when compared with other plant societies. I base this on
the ALEXA data which combines the AIS website and the wiki as a subdomain and
compares it to other sites. I think most people view this as one unit and I
think that is proper. We are not competing with each other but must work
together. It would appear that the wiki gets the majority of traffic. ALEXA
showed that 82% of the traffic for the website went to the wiki. The Wiki
shows that it sends 8% of it's traffic back to the website.

I am glad you provided the definitions of the statistics in your chart
becauseB some of the words are the same in the AWSTATS statistics but defined
slightly differently and so include different numbers. The two most comparable
were Pages/Month and Hits/Month. AWSTATS factors out all the unsuccessful hits
and does not include them listing them separately. It also distinguishes
between hits and pages that were actually viewed by visitors and those that
were viewed by Search Engines like Google that are updating their files. So to
compare the monthly data for April, I added back the search engines to give
the totals which is what I believe you say Lunar Pages provided. For example
the website records 69,122 pages for April the wiki records 3,546,747 pages.
The website records 1,117,182 hits for April and the wiki records 9,189,784
hits without adding back the unsuccessful hits. The combined totals of the
website and the wiki give us a very good ALEXA rating.


----- Original Message -----

From: "John Jones" <100h@rewrite.aisboard.org>
To: aisdiscuss@aisboard.org
Sent: Monday, June 9, 2014 3:44:12 PM
Subject: [AISdiscuss] Website and Statistics


Perhaps I can allay some concerns about the project.


President Morris posted:


"Designer A: B "$1200 for only a new menu B is actually insane. B IfB 
they're redoing the entire web site, then B that price is appropriate. B Not
menuB 
only, though."

B Designer B: B "Adding a few links should B only take a few minutes ofB 
someone's time. A change to links does not B typically require art assets to
beB 
redone."


Let's apply a little bit of a reality test to the comments above:


Is there anyone on the board that really believes that it were as easy as
"only a few minutes" as these "professional designers" have said, B that I
would not have changed the navigation already? In fact, given the suggestions
that have come up over the years, I would have done it several times (or
rather, presented a new version to the Board for approval)


The individuals that have made these comments have not taken the time to
investigate what platform and utilities our website is built on or to
understand the fact that the underlying background graphic needs to be changed
to allow additional menu items to be added so they don't overlay parts of the
graphic. Additionally the script that generates the menu cascades has to be
modified. The modifications have to be made to the home page and the five
templates we use for all the other pages on the website.B 


The restriction on the navigation architecture we designed in the beginning
was explained to the board before we implemented the project.B 




President Morris has asked that AWSTATS be installed on our website.
Unfortunately that is not possible. Our website runs on what is known as
aB shared server and Lunar Pages will not allow AWSTATS. If we wanted that
particular program we would have to switch to a dedicated server for aB cost
of roughly $30.00 per month above the $20.00 per month we currently pay.

There are other free programs that can be integrated into our website. They
require that some code be B inserted on our pages but that is not
aB overwhelming effort and I will integrate that code and generate reports on
a scheduled basis.B 


I don't make changes to the website changes without consulting the board.
Every change that has been made was made with the approval of the board. I
also don't waste money on frivolous projects. I finish projects that I start.
I have a track record that proves all that.


I will commit to the following:


If the motion to fund the navigation panel and the affected graphic areas
upgrade is passed:


I will immediately start the process of installing the code that will provide
statistics and we can start to collect the numbers. It will take a while to
collect meaningful data. Chris Hollinshead has some health issues at the
moment and is not available to assist in this effort.


I will start the project to redesign the background graphic and the code for
the navigation menus of home and template pages so we know how many additional
menu items we will have room for. We can't make reasonable judgements on a new
navigation architecture until we know how much space we have. Otherwise it
would be like trying to build a car engine without knowing how big the engine
compartment was. The home page is the only difficult page. The other pages
follow on a limited number of templates.


When we have sufficient statistical data to make thoughtful judgement on what
the top level and submenu items should be, we canB submit and get board
approval on the new navigation architecture, just as I did before implementing
the current architecture.B 


The final version of the home page and navigation panel will be presented to
the board for approval before it is implemented.


Because we will have new and ongoing statistical information, and because we
will have theB great deal more flexibility than we haveB todayB with the top
level menu items, we will have the ability to modify all levels of the menu
structure iteratively as frequently as the situation warrants and the board
desires.B 



I have provided the statistics we currently have available before, but
certainly not on a regular basis. The chart below shows the most recent daily
averages and monthly totals





Thanks

John
__________________B 
John and Joanne Jones
Registrar-Recorders, American Iris Society
aisregistrar@irises.org

John Jones, Chairman, Electronic Services Committee
aiselectronicsvcs@irises.org

35572 Linda Drive
Fremont, CA 94536





The definitions of the category are:

Hit - (Also called a Request) This is each time someone asks to see any part
of your site. To see your site, they will have to "hit" or "request"
aB specific page or file. This includes both requests that were successful and
those that were not.

File - Any part of your site (an image, html page, pdf document, script, etc)

KByte - A Kilobyte or KB. This is is equal to 1024 bytes. KBytes are used when
referencing the amount of data that was transferred to visitors of yourB site.

Page - The main file being requested to bring up a page of your site. The
individual items that make up the page (graphics, media, includes, etc)
doB not count towards this count. By default, only pages with .htm, .html or
.cgi extensions are counted.

Site - A unique IP address or hostname that requested a page / file on your
site. This should be thought of as a rough count of the visitors to
yourB site.

Visit - The first time someone views a page on your site, a visit is started.
Any other pages viewed by that visitor will not be counted as a
separateB visit until the visit times out (usually after 30 minutes). The
visit ends at this timeout point.

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