Checking AWF hit Count...

[isladogs]

I got slightly confused as you had updated post #18....

Sorry to be negative but there's both good and bad news for AWF in those stats.
The average visit duration is higher and the bounce rate is lower than is the case for UA.
However, the total number of visits to AWF per month has been declining for some time whereas UA whilst still lower has been fairly stable over the same period.
Although my impression is that there have been more new members in recent months (or perhaps just more doing an intro post?), the statistics clearly indicate that the site has not been generating more traffic since the new software was introduced

 

[Jon]

You are absolutely correct Colin. The issue is, I believe, that when I switched software platforms, Xenforo does a 301 redirect from the old vbulletin style urls to the Xenforo urls. It holds a database of every single vBulletin url from the old board, but that 301 redirect is, perhaps, the issue. Google stays nicely opaque on the issue of 301 redirects and I believe I discussed this in conversations over whether or not to switch software platforms. You can probably search for the thread where I talk about this. My fear was that when you do a 301 redirect, you lose a little oomph from that link juice. Since we have 10K+ links coming in, we lose lots of little oomphs which equals the loss of a big oomph!

Estimates are that you lose 5 to 10% of link juice for a 301 redirect, although SEO's debate how much all the time. Google has many factors that determine how to rank webpages. SEO's know many of them, but they are unsure of the weights of each, and there are no doubt a bunch of hidden ones too.

My rationale on switching platforms was that we are risking losing some visitors in return for hopefully a site that has a better user experience. The idea is that over the longer term, I hope we recover some/all/more visitors, while improving the experience and having greater security. What has surprised me is that the time on site figure has gone down slightly. I don't know if that is because the site is faster so people get their answers more rapidly, or something else. The old site was significantly slower so perhaps it is that, who knows for sure.

Post count here has gone up. My brain tells me that Google might consider newer software to be better and so rank extra for that, but maybe I am getting ahead of myself there.

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

I got slightly confused as you had updated post #18....

To avoid confusion for others --- Stats HERE:-

Checking AWF hit Count...

THE HIT COUNT is HERE:- https://www.access-programmers.co.uk/forums/threads/checking-awf-hit-count.301964/#post-1657654 I was checking website hits - I do this occasionally. I haven't seen anything published on AWF about it before, so I started this Thread ... Makes interesting reading...

www.access-programmers.co.uk

 

[The_Doc_Man]

I'll offer a comment on one narrow factor - site speed. When we were on vBulletin this never happened to me that I can recall, but it has happened at least four or five times on the new setup. I post a comment, then switch to another thread, then look at something that is a simple question and simple answer. When I type the response, I get told "You must wait x seconds before taking this action." The site is so fast that I can do the two-part navigation, read the request, type a response, and post it, then move on again faster than the minimum time limit. I know that time is there to prevent "bots" from flooding the site. But it is humorous that the site thinks I must be a bot.

 

[Jon]

Doc, I've just reduced the min time between messages from 30 to 20 for you (and anyone else). Hopefully you will find that a little more convenient. Also, I've cut down the limit of time between starting new threads.

 

[vba_php]

I don't know if that is because the site is faster so people get their answers more rapidly, or something else. The old site was significantly slower so perhaps it is that, who knows for sure.

it is because of ME and my comments, Jon. If you are listening to Colin and Richard, you would already know this.

My brain tells me that Google might consider newer software to be better and so rank extra for that, but maybe I am getting ahead of myself there.

does google really care about newer software vs. older software? asynch vs. asynch? MY brain would tell that matters not one bit. a crawler is a crawler. nothing more. a page is a page. a render is a render. don't you think that be so, @Jon ?

 

[Jon]

My rationale is that older software may have more exploits, and so a bigger security risk to users. But you are probably right.

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

WOW! 56% increase on my Site in one Month! - Must be doing something right for a change...

 

[vba_php]

what is a bounce rate, Jon?

My rationale is that older software may have more exploits, and so a bigger security risk to users.

it is well known that crawlers will stop indexing sites that do not have SSL certs on them in the near future. but I seriously doubt that will change their indexing based on anything else. meta tags being one of them.

 

[Jon]

Bounce rate is where someone visits the page and leaves virtually immediately. You want it as low as possible.

 

[vba_php]

Bounce rate is where someone visits the page and leaves virtually immediately. You want it as low as possible.

so that would be something that scammers and bots do right?

 

[Jon]

People who don't want the content.

 

[vba_php]

People who don't want the content.

makes me wonder why they even bother visiting then. it must be a mistake, no?

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

Bounce rate is where someone visits the page and leaves virtually immediately. You want it as low as possible.

My sites not well organized!

Needs a better menu setup. Should improve retention.

 

[isladogs]

Just checked my site statistics.
Fewer visits but a low bounce rate and longer session duration. Swings and roundabouts.

 

[NauticalGent]

My sites not well organized!

Needs a better menu setup. Should improve retention.

Maybe you should provide a link to Nifty Access in your signature...

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

Maybe you should provide a link to Nifty Access in your signature...

Good point! I removed it when the forum was upgraded, as it didn't look right with the new software.... Forgot about fixing it!

 

[Jon]

I've found that different types of pages can get very different bounce rates. Take a look at the forum index page, for example:

Now I am wondering what is dragging the bounce rate down, and if I can solve that, do I get a Google bump.

Sorting by bounce rate, I found this:

What are all those?? I've no idea so far! Will have to look into it because if I could reduce the average bounce rate here, maybe Google will give us more favour. No idea but worth looking into.

 

[NauticalGent]

Good point! I removed it when the forum was upgraded, as it didn't look right with the new software.... Forgot about fixing it!

So....have you noticed a spike?

 

[Uncle Gizmo]

I thought this might provide some useful information, when considering The Rise and Fall of MS Access. I can't find any recent hits data on the website though...

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