Fishing For Web Traffic? Important Info To The Business’s Of WoodyBoater.
Fishing around for info?
First, sorry! It aint boat photos today, but if you are a business, or work you’re local chapters facebook or web page, this might talk you off the cliff.
Traffic for nine years has been on the rise. The red is August-Mid December.
We have mentioned this a couple weeks ago, and are digging deeper into the topic of web traffic. Some of you, if you are paying attention to your traffic. Around August your traffic on social media sites dropped. Here on Woody Boater we saw a dramatic drop. TO be honest we blamed ourselves. OK, I blamed myself. Maybe I was getting stale? Maybe the content was getting tired. Heck after 9 years of doing every day, its possible. I have asked top people if the site is out of date?
And then it all hit. Facebook, and Google changed some things regarding advertising reach numbers. From what I understand, at any given time, there are “bots” roaming around and going to sites. These bots if on your site for a certain time, create a visit. But it isn’t anybody. Its just a search tool. Now I may be messed up on my explanation, but the idea is the same. Facebook and Google adjusted these bots. Or created a way to change them, and thus all our sites dropped. People lost jobs, companies lost revenue. And in our case felt like we had lost it. Hey, that was easier to believe than bots doing something.
More vintage fishing! No reason, just to break up the story. Keep reading.
The point here is not about what or why they did what they did. The good thing is that I am sure it was done for good reasons, and everyone saw the drop. The Boulder Bureau reports in a huge traffic drop on all social networks they manage, Here at the ad agency I own we saw the same thing on many accounts.
Alex Watson header from the past sums it up! Keep going!
SO, THE GOOD NEWS, the good news is that its not you or us. So how to you measure stuff? The rule of thumb is to look at TIME ON THE SITE. Are people staying on the site, Yes in fact that increased a bit last year. Bounce rate, the same. Look at your analytic s page! So its not you, its all of us, keep going, keep building your business online!
The readers are still out there!
Yes we know this isn’t boat related, but we here at Woody Boater want to help build the culture in any way we can. If it helps build your business, and helps you understand a little bit of whats going on, then that in turn helps the culture!
Another reason to stay away from fakebook and other places you have no control over.
I’m doing my part every day as far as ‘time on the site’…. I’m a very slow reader.
So glad to hear that the numbers drop wasn’t directly related to the presidential election.
Happy Festivus everyone!
Interesting post, observation. I wonder if you can ascertain or account for any differences in the drop between people who view Woody Boater on your FB page and those who read it from the link that is mailed to them. I would think it would be two different sets of metrics, but then I have only been around boats all my life, not bots. Damn, what a difference an ‘a’ makes!
Miles, most web reporting applications can report “where the visitor came from”. another invasion of privacy. It would be interesting if Matt would reveal his sources.
Miles:
How do you get WoodyBoater mailed to you. I get several publications e-mailed to me each day and tried to get Matt to install such a program for WoodyBoater so I wouldn’t forget it. As time passed it got rather routine for me to go find it each day but it sure would be nice if it showed up each day in my in box. How did you get Matt to do that for you ?
I have it figured out!
Add bacon attract humans
Add magnets attract more bots
Happy Woody Boating Everyone!
Well I’m not one to tell ya “I told you so” but I told you so. The numbers reporting web site visits has always been “hocus pocus”. The applications doing the reporting are designed to promote the industry certainly not “to tell the truth”, that’s old school. And any good statistician will attempt to reveal the false hope of absolute numbers. The existence of web crawlers distorting reality and spying on you and everyone is simply a step towards the robots taking over. Beware. Be warned Be safe. Go Boating.
I am with Tommy on this one. Web statistics have always been suspect, and social media numbers have ranged between pure fiction and fraud.
I am a little bit lost on this one. If the bots have been modified by geegaw & fakebook doesn’t that mean the original authors will take it another step in creating more sophisticated bots to lie statically?
I thought Matt made another typo with bots. See if they have any wooden bots. That is where you will find the numbers. Don’t beat yourself up with computer numbers remember the Russians have hacked into the computer world.
I use three different systems to draw our traffic since I struggle with trust as well. One is the host server which records everything. The other are WordPress numbers and google analytics. All three are different numbers. But we look at trends. It specific numbers. Facebook has its own analytics which also corwardinates with the numbers. But they defentantly dial back different stories for there own reasons.
All this makes about as much sense as Seb Borillo when he starts talking about magnets and electronics in his Brass Bell articles…Fun to read but leaves me amazed at what other people understand while I’m still struggling with capatcha
So do we resort to mailings again? Would be tough to get started in the morning without WoodyBoater at the ready. Maybe make the new stories start at 6 instead of seven though. Have to read it as I’m leaving.
It will be interesting to see if traffic increases (incrementally) now that the election is over… 🙂 Great “discovery” and a perfect illustration of how just about everything delivered or interpreted through social media can be manipulated.
Where was the picture on the Cobra box appearing the header taken.? ..Looks very much like it was shot from the South looking north to the 79th St. causeway bridge in Miami.
I agree with the first post by Jim Staib as per usual. Hey, I went boating today, cruised all the way around Gwynn’s Island at 5-6 knots, perfect day and sea conditions!!
This thread is in a language foreign to me…..so:
Merry Christmas! Let’s Go Boating and let the geeks, cro0ks, and bots…sort this one out!
Hey, maybe those bots have infected me and many of these post attributed to me….were actually…..????
John in Va.
I’ve owned a restoration shop for 20 years. The one thing I’ve noticed is the phone calls and work fall off during an election year. After the election is over. Does not matter who get elected. Its bcd to normal.
Paralysis thru analysis!