I think it all evens out Pup, because on a Monday, the posts that were sitting in queue all weekend show up.

The real killer stat (besides post count) is on Alexa, and that on is page/views per user and time on site. When the audience spends ON AVERAGE less than five minutes per visit, there can be no CREDIBLE claim of relevance, or importance.

Apparently that site and others, are highly allergic to any of their potential clients finding any other site if they can prevent it. In other words, the real purpose of pre-approving posts is to make sure nobody tells someone about Marriage Advocates. That is one reason why I post the web address for the five biggest marriage forums right here on a periodic basis. Lead by example, you know.

I guess that means that those in charge have done their own evaluation and decided that a Berlin Wall is needed to, uh, do what?

Larry

Never fear the free expression of counter-argument and ideas. If they withstand the intellectual rigor of scrutiny, then you SHOULD be pointing your members to them, and if they DON'T, then they'll be rightly rejected as inferior and unhelpful.

Puppy

To the best of my knowledge, we have lost very few folks to other sites, maybe a couple or three and gained, how many? Hundreds, obviously.

This weekend, we will take the next great leap (step) to the next phase of our development.

Watch Announcements.

Larry

Is it the Twitter account that AR just posted about?

yes

This forum is to be commended. You've created a very strong "forum culture" within a short period of time. That's what creates a sense of community that draws and retains members. Over time, the numbers will show that very clearly.

I remember being a moderator for an excellent forum. The topic was so obscure (and probably absurd to most people) that I won't even mention it here. But the forum was incredibly popular. It constantly attracted new members and had a remarkable degree of member loyalty. It was because of the forum culture, which was in part due to the leadership by the forum owners and the moderators who preceded me.

I am pleased to announce that Alexa has us listed at US 33,224 in ranking (lower is better), which is our best rank yet. We have only been on Alexas' radar since about October 1. I know of no other forum that ever taken off like this one.

That was the good news. The bad news is that we will roller coaster up and down for some period of time until our google rank catches up with our performance.

Larry

Hey, flowmom...commend yourself, too. You're a significant part of the community. Thank you very much for being here, adding to the shape, size, balance we're experiencing right now.

You rock.

LA

If I said that it probably would have not been as flattering.

Thanks LA

Pookie, you catch on quick

Alexa rank for Marriage Advocates = 30,935. I wonder if we will peak below 30K before we pong back up.

Larry

lol, pookie.



I added the Alexa toolbar, Larry.

LA

Leave us look carefully at the following image. See, for years, MB just sort of rocked along in terms of pageviews/user. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, they started climbing the ladder of Alexa ranking.



Now it is that without question, TAM is the biggest forum on the Web for marriage. You can tell if you look at their thread count. It is common for them to have nearly 500 threads in a seven day period of time. Now I don't believe that they actually had over 3,000 visitors at 3AM one morning, but I can count the threads, so that tells me something.

Oh, and I was wrong about MB in one respect. As it turns out, according to Alexa, 90% of their traffic IS to their forum.

So now I look at their member count - TAM's member count and their respective visitor count and I go "huh?" It just doesn't make sense. I trust the MB member and visitor counts because they use a software package you can't game. I dunno about TAM.

Now that I know how to do these graphs (thank you AR), I will be able to use them in these stats and site metric posts.

Larry

According to that graph, was it around October that they started climbing in pageviews/user? (Since the years were separated into four sections, I thought that each section was 3 months, then I estimated what month would be in the middle of the last one.)

There is a two week variance for which I cannot account in the way that Alexa displays. That would put the surge nearer the end of November than in October.

The start date for this thread is 11/28.

Would the graph look like both of these scenarios (or a combination of them)?......

1. Significant increase in the number of new threads (which could cause an increase in the total number of pages that were available to be viewed)?

2. Significant increase in interest to read/post to threads not usually read including those that are in different forums?

Am I on the right track of interpreting the chart?

If so, is there more that I could consider? (Please give me a hint, if so. )

What the chart means is that for years, the average person arriving at MB, viewed a few pages - less than 10, then left.

All of a sudden, the page views per person sky rocketed.

There was no significant increase in number of threads. I haven't a clue if there was a significant increase in people wanting to read the poetry threads or not. Probably not.

MA subscribes to Alexa. This means that we have this little bug on our system that watches our traffic, page views, that sort of thing and reports it to Alexa. I do not know if MB has one or not.

I have reported previously that Alexa ranking considers page views and total number of visitors.

Afterthought: I posted that chart because I don't understand what happened. I will be posting other charts in the near future.

Larry

ANNOUNCEMENT

I am pleased to report that Marriage Advocates, a site that did not start registering on Alexa until about the first of October of last year (less than six months), has now reached a US Traffic rank of:

29,300

Traffic rank is graded by a combination of visitors and page views per visitor

I do not expect us to maintain that rank. We will bounce around for some time to come until we get our content sorted out and start advertising. Dropping below 30K is a big deal though, and I didn't really expect we would get there for some time to come.

Thanks to all the members who choose this site for whatever reason they choose this site.

Larry

Well, we are now down to 27,754. I still expect a bounce back up.

larry

Well folks, we did bounce back up, nearly to 30K, but back down we went over the past week until tonight, we are listed as US 25,399, pretty darn good. AND, we are now getting close to the magic 100K mark world wide, down to 137,421. In order to really hit the big time, one has to get below 100K worldwide and stay there for three months.

We are actually higher ranked than TAM in US traffic. Their current rank is US 29,925, but their worldwide rank is 58,697, which is very good indeed. I am going to provide a complete update on TAM, SI, MB, DB and MA traffic based on Alexa ranking in the near future.

Also upcoming is an interesting analysis of posts by user (not identified, just by category) that is in process, based on our intrepid Research Volunteers hand counting of posts on a couple of sites.

Here we go with posting stats between 8PM CDST Friday till 8PM CDST Saturday:

MA Posts 385 Topics 68 Online snapshot 16 Members 10 guests
MB Posts 112 Topics 28 Online snapshot 21 Members 58 guests
DB Posts 166 Topics 61 Online snapshot 14 Members and guests.


Editorial:

MA is more than just a couple of fairly focused forums, we are an interesting site. We have all sorts of marriage related material and things to talk about. And we offer help that is based on a broad base of professional thinking as well as the experiences of individual members.

Just look at our post count even at this time of the year.

A recent analysis of our content revealed that we have accumulated a serious quantity of (serious) material and we have volunteers sorting through it now for category and display so it will be easier to find. That said, our forums speak for themselves in terms of description and many people have success in finding what they are looking for in spite of some disorganization that is process of being handled.

We do not have more than a decade online, a radio show or a strong google rank to attract visitors. Nor do we have our content organized very well, yet. What we have is, as I said, an interesting site, with lots to read, lots to think about, lots to post about, and yes, lots to laugh about.

What we don't have is a board culture where the leadership takes themselves so seriously they run off anyone who disagrees with them or gains popularity outside their permission and slavish adherence to their belief system. And that IS not directed to any one site - I can think of at least three where that applies and not just in the Marriage category.

The point is that we are a diverse site with lots going on. We attract people based on who we are and what we do. And we don't take ourselves seriously.

Just for the record, we do not prevent people from posting links to other sites. Now I never saw the Berlin Wall, but I have seen pictures. What I have seen is the wall between Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China.

I was on a business trip to Guangzhou (Canton) on the train in the old days before HK and PRC combined. Lots of high walls and barbed wire and military guarded the border to try to keep people from escaping Communist "Paradise."

And when the train stopped in Guangzhou, a bunch of military surrounded the train looking OUT, to keep people from trying to sneak ON the train, not off, before it turned around and went back to HK.

You don't have to jump through hoops to find the web address of any marriage site you want to go view. They are posted here for your convenience. You do not have to jump through hoops to get someone's email address or talk to them privately, we have Private Messaging turned ON.

So does SI, to their credit.

Back in the old days, many of the top leaders in those countries that locked in their citizens as best they could, would themselves find good reason to go visit other places. Heck old Kruschev wanted to go to Disneyland.

Sometimes I speculate how many leaders from other sites arrive on our shores to read our stuff. Then again, maybe I'm just stirring things up. Ya think?

End of Editorial.

Larry

We are now down to US 23,787 in Alexa rank. More importantly, we are at 128,916 in world ranking. This at the close of our first six months in operation.

One of the reasons for this acceleration in ranking is that the weather is getting better for outdoor activities. Yet our own site continues to be a magnet for those what want to spend a bit of time socializing and posting on the very important aspect of life; marriages and family life.

Now here is a bit of sneak preview. Just on the edge of the world ranking, starting with this last week of March, I can see this tiny little line under Traffic Ranking, a bit of blue going up the scale from 100.000K to about 75K, so it seems.

If we can hold on to that trend, we will be under 100K worldwide, and that is the category that Alexa tracks with the most intensity.

When you consider that there are well over 5 million web sites worldwide, under 100K is a very big deal indeed.

Larry