Record Breakers
By Griff
February 2 2009
As Irish stutter a little in the bid for the best season in their history, The Craic is going from strength-to-strength. January 2009 was, incredibly, the biggest month ever for this site. It seems the Irish support still likes to discuss everything and nothing online.
February 2 2009
As Irish stutter a little in the bid for the best season in their history, The Craic is going from strength-to-strength. January 2009 was, incredibly, the biggest month ever for this site. It seems the Irish support still likes to discuss everything and nothing online.
I've been on record saying we'd never beat "Jack's Month", May 2006, when the world, it seemed, popped onto The Craic to wish Wee Jack all-the-best in his fight. I certainly didn't expect us to better it within 3 years but last month The Craic registered 896,503 page hits, beating May 2006 by a whopping 15...
The growth, as you can see from the graph, has been fairly steady - except for a bit of a blip when SportNetwork switched-over to a new site-design and had a number of technical issues. Back in the beginning we saw around 125,00 hits per month which we slowly saw edging higher to around 350,000 over the first 3 years. Around that time it plateaued a little and the new design took a bit of the pace out of the rise but since the start of the 2007/8 season a marked growth began which has really spiked over this season.
The graph is a bit difficult to see as I've had to shrink it to fit the page-width. The top red line is the total number of hits on the site, the green line that tracks it are the MB hits and the bottom blue line is the story hits.
Much of January's peak can be attributed to visitors from Munster checking-in to see the latest on the Warwick "affair" but we were well on-the-way to a big month in advance of that episode. The Craic has historically done well when the team are succeeding, many sites register increases when their team is struggling but London Irish supporters seem to get more vocal when they're happy.
How many people does this equate to ? I'm often asked how many people regularly read The Craic, I'm afraid I don't know. It's a source of much discussion within the web industry (obviously people who market using the web want to know who's paying attention). I can only say we get our traffic from around 15,000 IP addresses.
Page hits are one indicator - some sites report "element" hits, counting every picture and fragment of a page, on SportNetwork one "hit" is a page viewed (one story, one thread page on the MB etc). Hits cannot easily indicate numbers of people. IP addresses are a better indicator as each one is a unique computer attaching to the web... except they aren't. Big networks like AOL, Tiscali, Pipex etc re-use IP addresses so a single-one can be used by many people. Many people reading from one company can also be registered as a single IP address. A lot of people, though, now read the web from many places. Their work, their home even mobile phones these days so one single person may register as several IP addresses.
As you've probably guessed, there is no single answer. A few years ago the rule-of-thumb in the industry was one IP address averaged to three people. I don't think this is accurate any more - it's possibly below 1 these days. My guess would be 2 - so The Craic sees somewhere in the region of 30,000 people visit over the course of a month but, as I say, it's only a guess.
The growth, as you can see from the graph, has been fairly steady - except for a bit of a blip when SportNetwork switched-over to a new site-design and had a number of technical issues. Back in the beginning we saw around 125,00 hits per month which we slowly saw edging higher to around 350,000 over the first 3 years. Around that time it plateaued a little and the new design took a bit of the pace out of the rise but since the start of the 2007/8 season a marked growth began which has really spiked over this season.
The graph is a bit difficult to see as I've had to shrink it to fit the page-width. The top red line is the total number of hits on the site, the green line that tracks it are the MB hits and the bottom blue line is the story hits.
Much of January's peak can be attributed to visitors from Munster checking-in to see the latest on the Warwick "affair" but we were well on-the-way to a big month in advance of that episode. The Craic has historically done well when the team are succeeding, many sites register increases when their team is struggling but London Irish supporters seem to get more vocal when they're happy.
How many people does this equate to ? I'm often asked how many people regularly read The Craic, I'm afraid I don't know. It's a source of much discussion within the web industry (obviously people who market using the web want to know who's paying attention). I can only say we get our traffic from around 15,000 IP addresses.
Page hits are one indicator - some sites report "element" hits, counting every picture and fragment of a page, on SportNetwork one "hit" is a page viewed (one story, one thread page on the MB etc). Hits cannot easily indicate numbers of people. IP addresses are a better indicator as each one is a unique computer attaching to the web... except they aren't. Big networks like AOL, Tiscali, Pipex etc re-use IP addresses so a single-one can be used by many people. Many people reading from one company can also be registered as a single IP address. A lot of people, though, now read the web from many places. Their work, their home even mobile phones these days so one single person may register as several IP addresses.
As you've probably guessed, there is no single answer. A few years ago the rule-of-thumb in the industry was one IP address averaged to three people. I don't think this is accurate any more - it's possibly below 1 these days. My guess would be 2 - so The Craic sees somewhere in the region of 30,000 people visit over the course of a month but, as I say, it's only a guess.
As we've seen, though, a good few new posters have appeared over the past few months, many of the usual suspects still contribute effervescently and some of the old names still pop back-in from time-to-time - it's believable that the stats do, indeed, show that the Craic is more popular than ever. As we continue towards the end of this amazing season we may see even higher highs, we may even break the magic million hits one month soon.
Keep it going you Irish!
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Posted by: The Craic www.londonirish.org (IP Logged)
Date: 11/02/2009 14:23
What do you think? You can have your say by posting below.
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Re: Record Breakers
Posted by: John A (IP Logged)
Date: 11/02/2009 16:08
Gosh! I thought it was just a few close friends ...
Re: Record Breakers
Posted by: MadMonk (IP Logged)
Date: 11/02/2009 16:11
Well done us!
I have a question about the advertisers. They obviously pay for the privilege of advertising. Do they pay more when there are more hits, or do the only pay per "click-through"?
And who gets the money?
I have a question about the advertisers. They obviously pay for the privilege of advertising. Do they pay more when there are more hits, or do the only pay per "click-through"?
And who gets the money?
Re: Record Breakers
Posted by: Griff (IP Logged)
Date: 11/02/2009 16:20
Advertisers pay per hit (and more for click-through) the money goes to Durham Associates.... however there is a revenue share scheme which gives money to each site. We only get cash for story hits (so our MB, despite being one of the busiest, earns us nothing. We get something like 25p per 1000 story hits - money, as I said in an earlier thread will be used to fund promotion and pay charities. Bill, Brian and I aren't in this for the money (which, as it turns out, is handy).
Re: Record Breakers
Posted by: MadMonk (IP Logged)
Date: 11/02/2009 16:44
I would be seriously worried if I thought any of you were in it for the money, I am sure you would make far more doing a paper round!
Sorry for being thick but what constitutes a story? a Craic report? If so, would we get more if we did match previews as well? also does this count as a story?
Sorry for being thick but what constitutes a story? a Craic report? If so, would we get more if we did match previews as well? also does this count as a story?
Re: Record Breakers
Posted by: Griff (IP Logged)
Date: 11/02/2009 16:50
Stories are all the ones on the front-page, plus all the ones in the menu (that are hosted by SN - Results and Fixtures, Recipe corner, Meet the Family etc.).
Yes, previews would generate more story hits (and more money) it's just that I rarely get the chance to write one - I've done a few this year. As ever if anyone wants to write a preview (or, indeed, anything else) then simply email the text along with any pictures you want included (don't bother putting them into a word doc, we only have to cut it all up anyway) to the editors address - so long as it's not libellous it'll get published.
Yes, previews would generate more story hits (and more money) it's just that I rarely get the chance to write one - I've done a few this year. As ever if anyone wants to write a preview (or, indeed, anything else) then simply email the text along with any pictures you want included (don't bother putting them into a word doc, we only have to cut it all up anyway) to the editors address - so long as it's not libellous it'll get published.
Re: Record Breakers
Posted by: Brosie (IP Logged)
Date: 11/02/2009 17:57
Really, May 2006. I'll get into that Pirates shirt yet.
Re: Record Breakers
Posted by: X~Pat (IP Logged)
Date: 11/02/2009 21:57
So if we all have mass "hit and click through in " (ooooh get me) will it be enough for a free %*@@ ^% in the Cowshed ?
Re: Record Breakers
Posted by: MaggieH (IP Logged)
Date: 12/02/2009 00:26
Great stats, Griff, thank you. Perhaps if we asked each lurker to post just one message in February, we'd hit the million mark. G'wan, you know you want to!
Re: Record Breakers
Posted by: Props are not stupid (IP Logged)
Date: 12/02/2009 11:49
So, if we have a story on the left menu titled FREE SEX, can we raise some money? The drums need some investment on them, the one I play needs a new skin and I am credit crunched big time.
Re: Record Breakers
Posted by: Brosie (IP Logged)
Date: 12/02/2009 12:34
MaggieH, what a great idea. How about the Eds put up some bate to encourage the lurkers to respond (maybe a little prize competition), and we all cross our hearts and hush our mouths very-very tightly, promising not to hijack the thread?
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009:02:12:12:45:39 by Brosie.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009:02:12:12:45:39 by Brosie.
Re: Record Breakers
Posted by: JamesC (IP Logged)
Date: 14/02/2009 09:45
Top stuff. Good graph - a change to some of the FTSE index tracker things one sees a lot of these days.
Re: Record Breakers
Posted by: cailín úr (IP Logged)
Date: 14/02/2009 10:00
"January 2009 was, incredibly, the biggest month ever for this site"
I joined in January 09 wonder had that anything to do with it?
Seriously well done everyone
I joined in January 09 wonder had that anything to do with it?
Seriously well done everyone
Re: Record Breakers
Posted by: Jon_r43 (IP Logged)
Date: 14/02/2009 10:19
We were arounnd in May 06 but can the editors point those newer than us to anything that explains "Jack's Month"?
Really important that it doesn't get lost!
Just thinking about him reading this and the real mix of fun and sadness comes back.... Time for Ice Cream and Pirates again anyone?
Really important that it doesn't get lost!
Just thinking about him reading this and the real mix of fun and sadness comes back.... Time for Ice Cream and Pirates again anyone?
Re: Record Breakers
Posted by: Jon_r43 (IP Logged)
Date: 14/02/2009 10:36
Cheers MM
Not sure I can read that one just now or might not make the game today!
Will have a propper look later
Not sure I can read that one just now or might not make the game today!
Will have a propper look later
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