This is not so. Rudimentary statistical analysis can fine it down much more. You’ve got an IP address that resolves to a relatively small geographic area, additional information about what revision of what browser is running under what version of what OS, and referrer information, if applicable.
This gives us a much better starting point to try to determine what sort of exposure our site is getting. Trying to make inferences about “unique visitors” much more useful than just counting html requests. If I’ve got 1,000 1X1 images imbedded in an html document, loading that page might be counted as 1001 “hits.” If somebody hotlinks to one of my images on a popular site like FARK or b3ta, then I might easily expect another 10,000 hits from people who’ve never heard of my website.
So it’s much more useful to look at things a little less simple-mindedly. Who’s making these requests? How many people that you are reasonably certain are discrete individuals? Where are they coming from? Are they really looking at your site? How many links did they follow? Approximately how long do their “visits” last?
Let’s look at my crappiest domain – a half-hearted attempt at a personal photo-blog that I spent a day developing and made a few entries to before I decided that the format was lousy and abandoned it, thinking I’ll actually develop it later. I’ve been busy, and haven’t done a damned thing with it. (It’s still in my profile. :smack: )
Anyway, depending on how we count things, this incomplete, non-maintained, nearly content-free webpage is either averaging “5,084 HITS A DAY!!!” for the last seven days, or, this week I’ve averaged 9 unique visitors per day who were interested enough to look beyond the front page. (Remarkable, actually, under the circumstances.) I have no illusions about which measure is a more accurate reflection of the site’s popularity. “Hits” don’t mean a damned thing.
All right, the Hell with measuring website popuarity.
So, it seems that just about everybody thinks my website looks crappy and needs some - shall we say - “tidying up”?
I appreciate GuanoLad taking the time and effort to make the index page more presentable.
I am currently working on revising his revision, but I’m grateful that GuanoLad took that first step. Tripler, thanks very much for the compliment. I feel the same way you do about website appearance but I guess most folks think it’s important. Then again, I’ve got more than 150 webpages out there and I’m not going to change every one of those in one day.
Tracy Lord
Actually, this is (was, actually) a pitting of WPTS. so I don’t think your question is a hijack at all. That chronology of Shakespeare’s plays is one of the oldest pages on my whole website. (I recently revised it and added those quotes). Anyway, the actual list was something I gathered together in 1998 after surfing a few Internet sites. (I think there may be some disagreement about the chronology, correct?)
Good for you for taking constructive criticism and improving your site. With your valuable content, and a spiffy new look, I’m sure your site will become even more popular.
Feel free to adapt my design to any way you see fit. It was just an example on how simple changes can make a world of difference.
I noticed that, judging by the tons of extraneous code in the page, you were using some kind of wysiwyg HTML software to make it, which perhaps you’ll continue to do when you make your changes. Just be careful that you don’t weigh it down too much with more unnecessary breaks, 'nbsp’s and font tags, because they can unexpectedly mess things up.
Thank you Revtim and GuanoLad
By the way, the “software” I used for coding the entire website was Notepad - nothing else. Then again it might explain the appearance of my website as being something less than stellar. Those graphics (backgrounds and lines) that everybody seems to “love” :rolleyes: were gathered from Public Domain sites probably around 1998. The diagrams & graphics (E=mc², P[sub]1[/sub] • V[sub]1[/sub] = P[sub]2[/sub] • V[sub]2[/sub] and so on) were made with Microsoft Paint. Yes, I like to keep on the cutting edge of high technology. (If nothing else I have stated many times on the SDMB that being a Boston Yankee, I tend to be somewhat thrifty … okay, I’m cheap !!!)
Tracy Lord maybe Bill the Bard really did write those “Henry” plays out of order. Heck, the first Star Wars movie was “Episode 4”. I’m sure Shakespeare would appreciate that analogy.
Maybe he did, but may I make that gentle suggestion that you do a bit more research for that portion of the site? I’ve never seen the chronology you list there, and it’s quite counterintuitive (not that that’s an argument in itself, but it does make an alternate chronology more likely).
