Visitors:
This is a count of how many visitors actually come to a site during a specific time period. It should never be confused with the number of “hits” a site receives. The number of visitors is what truly represents how many times people actually visit any given site.
The average monthly visitors the SoCalEquine.com directory receives has more than doubled every year during the first 3 years. Compared to 2004, the directory increased 140% to over 57,000 average monthly visitors in 2005 and by more than 300% from the 2003 average.
With current expansion efforts now taking place, we are anticipating our visitor traffic to climb at an even higher rate. Through our marketing efforts, The Southern California Equestrian Directory is expecting to be visited close to 2 million times during the coming 2006 year and averaging more than 150,000 monthly visitors.
Unique IP’s:
Unique IP’s represent the number of distinct individual visitors that a site receives each month. This number resets every month and counts the number of times a new and distinct user first visits the site. In addition, when comparing this number to the number of visitors described above, it can also be used to calculate how many times visitors are returning to the site during the month.
SoCalEquine.com has averaged more than 26,000 unique visits each month during 2005. This is an increase of 146% from 2004 and 221% from 2003. This indicates that thousands of new people continually discover and use the directory each month to find the equestrian information they are looking for.
When comparing the monthly average of 26,000 unique visits to the 57,000 per month visitor average, the SoCalEquine.com directory has proven itself to provide highly useful, reliable information and indicates that people find the site easy to use and compelling them to return often.
Page Views:
Page views are the quantity of individual pages that visitor’s request to see from any given site. By tracking and comparing the number of pages being requested with the number of visitors, it allows you to calculate a close approximation as to how long visitors are staying on a particular site.
During the 2005 year, the SoCalEquine.com directory received, on average, nearly twice as many page views as the number of visitors. Now this might not seem as a good number to some people since it appears as though visitors don’t stay very long on the site. However, it is exactly right for the type of site the directory is, and the very reason the directory exists. People use the directory to search for equestrian related information.
They aren’t staying on the site long for one very good reason…
THEY ARE FINDING EXACTLY WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING FOR, and getting directed to the information they want quickly.
When we look deeper into the statistics, we also discover that like all other sites, we have a “Top 10 List” of page requests as well. Looking closely at the number of visitors for each of the many other pages in the directory, we see that most all of pages are averaging the same number of visitors. Since the directory uses mostly one single page for each specific category/market area item, this provides us with a valuable in-site. That is, our visitors are using the directory to search for everything related to the equestrian market. Since they are finding everything they are looking for, they are returning often to find all of the equestrian information that they are looking for.
Hits:
Hits are actually a count of all the individual files and/or graphic images that the pages of a site use each time a page is requested and displayed. This would be close to the number of visitors if only one or two files/images were being displayed for each page request. However most all pages will use many files from the server when displaying any given page. Depending on the quantity of files that each page of a website uses when being displayed, the “hits” count can be much higher. Some sites attempt to inflate this “hits” statistic by having a graphic logo being displayed along side a “reciprocating” text link from someone else’s website. Then, whenever someone else’s website is visited, the graphic file has to be retrieved from referring site’s server. This will register a “hit” for a site even though it isn’t actually being visited. Many site’s webmasters, as a term and condition in providing a referring link in the first place, will “require” this reciprocating link from every site in which they provide a referring link.
The SoCalEquine.com directory has significantly increased our average monthly hits in 2005 compared to the previous years. The average hits have increased by more than 270% from the 2004 average because it has become a staple in the California equestrian market. Since the directory has vastly increased its network of equestrian information and related free postings, our sponsorship and paid advertising has increased a great deal as well. These additional sponsors, banners and button advertisement images have increased the number of files/images being displayed throughout the pages of the directory. That means more files are being loaded with each page and thus generates higher hit counts. Yes, in some cased the directory does have a small logo with a reciprocating link, it is very seldom and almost all reciprocating links are text only and are never “required”. The only time the directory “requires” a reciprocating text only link is when free classified ad postings request their website address to be listed.
