Making Sense Of The Numbers
My site have only been reopened since the middle of this month. I tried looking at my server statistics to see if I can deduce any conclusion about the UAE blog reader community: when is best to post new entries, and what is really happening in terms of numbers to my traffic and where it is coming from. While it is impossible to assume this is the case with every other UAE website, it is a good starting point to making general hypothesis of the behaviour of the community as a whole.
Traffic is highest on Friday, Sunday, and Monday, not Thursday as I expected, presumably because people are out and about, not home on Thusdays.
Fig1:Traffic destribution by day of the week.
Peculiarly, my traffic starts to climb slowly at 6:00 pm (UAE time) to peek at 4:00 am in the morning, then declines again. While I think the 6:00 pm start is accurate, I don’t think most UAE internet people are awake by 4:00 AM every night. I think the 4:00 PM is offset-ed in large by the weekend activity.
Fig2:Traffic destribution, by hour of the day. (UAE time = server+13)
Other things I found:
- 82.1% of my visitors came straight here by typing my web address in their URL box and 17% were sent here by links from other people’s websites (referral traffic). Search engines sent me a pathetic 0.4%
- Kitten sends me a lot of my referral traffics; a whole 24% of them –Two thirds of the this come from her main page, while the rest come from other pages buried deep inside her website. So there you go guys, you know who to send the link-me requests now. Second on my list of referral heroes is miracle-girl who sent me 10% of referrer’s traffic. Samsoomah also sent me 7% and uaeyah 6%.
- Technorati sent me 3%, del.icio.us 1% and flickr 5%. I will keep an eye on these numbers and see how they change in the coming months in relation to my activity. If the numbers increase there will be no excuse to remain detached from their websites.
- 11% of those who visited me last month added my website to their favorites.
- 60% stayed for less than two minutes.
The take home message for my fellow uae webmasters:
- Publish your new entries at 6:00 PM (UAE time). It is the magic hour.
- Despite what you may think, people don’t read blogs on Thursdays, they have better things to do.
- Fridays, Sundays and Mondays are days for good blogging.
- Don’t underestimate referral traffic
- Flood kitten with link me requests
We will see next month if these facts are consistent. I wonder if other webmasters can deduce the same conclusions from their site reports. If you did, please let me know.
May 31st, 2005 at 5:16 pm
wow nice update… I I found that few months ago that Thursdays always have the lowest number visitors and even ppl on msn.
Best time to update is during weekdays.
May 31st, 2005 at 5:49 pm
Blackpearlz, what are your numbers like? do you have access to your server statistics?
May 31st, 2005 at 8:22 pm
How did u know this “11% of those who visited me last month added my website to their favorites.”
Does your site has some sort of software that knows and counts when someone adds you to his/her favorites ?! That’s awesome !!
I don’t think your statistics will remain the same next month. You know, it’s holiday time in the UAE. I’m wondering if 6pm will still be the “magic hour” !!
May 31st, 2005 at 8:40 pm
Esperanza, this number is calculated (estimated) from a formula that’s been around the net for some time. I use my webhost to extract these numbers. They use Awstat to monitor what is going on. According the Awstat, the numbre of add-to-favourits is estimated as follows:
I wonder too if the numbers stay the same next month, or if 6:00 pm remains the magic hour. I will certainly post about them again in 30 days time.
May 31st, 2005 at 8:45 pm
Awstats provided far more details than I posted here. I had to cut things short to avoid boring people who are not as enthusiastic about numbers as I am. One thing I found peculiar though is the search terms people used in google to land here. Things like “uae, etisalat, population, culture, zlaan” I dont even know what zlaan is.
May 31st, 2005 at 8:51 pm
Hey e3ashig.. i’ve always found it interesting looking into my web stats.. i usually check it once a week for fun.. =)
check this out…
Kinda interesting eh? the hours looks similar.. but the days.. they are evening out on my side.. my referrers for each month are different..
Kitten scored high last month.. this month it was Flickr.. =)
we’ll see how things turn out for you next month.. =)
May 31st, 2005 at 8:51 pm
here is the link to the image i made..
May 31st, 2005 at 9:14 pm
Numbers can get tricky ;)
Anyway, thanks for the info. That was interesting. I never thought ppl would be interested in such things !! Do u carry a pocket PC by any chance ?! You’re pretty fast in replying, ma sha’Allah !!
May 31st, 2005 at 9:17 pm
Esperanza, nope, i happened to be online trying to figure out why some people see a huge white space before the first entry of the main page (which i do not see on my computer) and saw your message.
uaeyah, so the 6:00PM hour rule is consistent. curious. cant wait to see next month’s stats and compare them.
May 31st, 2005 at 9:28 pm
*GASP* This is what I get from you?! An open invitation in public for people to come and harrass me! O_o *tsk tsk*
I wonder how this all works lol.. It would be interesting to see where my people come from.. =P Again I will nag you online to teach me..
May 31st, 2005 at 9:53 pm
lol ok Thanks Sultan for showing me online.. 6ela3 inna I only get 36 people from YOUR website.. =P 0% ONLY!!
Most hits I get from websites & forums I never heard of before.. how weird.. =s
May 31st, 2005 at 11:06 pm
ooo how intressting and braaaaainy..so u can only know that stuff if uve got a webbie as opposed to a blogging site like blog spot and me very own fav..live journal?
June 1st, 2005 at 5:55 am
awww greatt posttt! i love delving into my statistics for hidden information about my viitors! lol
anyway it seems my webbie alsooo GETS the majority of its traffic via http://www.uaekitten.com hehehe so kitty u have no exsquse but to accept ppl’s linking requests loll! as for my traffic filled days well they seem to be on sundays and mondays! although i usually blog on friday mornings ! 66% of my audience spend no more than 30mins on my site and hmmm the peak times for logging on is around 2pm! wow alll my statsitics dnt match yours apart from uaekittens influx of traffic awwwwwww! eheheheh greta post glad to sharee the stats with ya!
June 2nd, 2005 at 12:45 am
Kitten, you are welcome.
Fashionista, I know most web hosts provide statistical packages when you buy their services. I dont know if blog spot does anything similar. However,there are these people online who will do your statistics for you by providing you with a little image that you include on your webpage. So if you have access to the HTMLof your page, you can use them.
I never tired specefic ones, but this site tracker looks good.
many more available by a simple google search
PinkSushi, curious observations. Should get more people’s statistics here to see the general trend. We now know yours is different from mine, kitten’s and uaeah
June 2nd, 2005 at 5:14 am
e3ashig Well on Thursday the number of visitors was 32 for this week but on Sat it was 72.
I usually check my webstats from this link
http://www.mvtracker.com/stats.php?l=blackpearlz
June 3rd, 2005 at 3:01 am
Fashonesta, this is the one I was trying to find earlier. It seems to be the better one that alot of people use. You may want to give it a try:
http://www.sitemeter.com/
blackpearlz, cool, lets compare again at the end of this month. We will find the better days and the “Magic Houre”
June 3rd, 2005 at 7:27 am
I feel like you webmasters are spying on us innocent people who just want to sit here and spy on your lives!
Can you extract information on WHO is browsing your site, or just how many people, when, etc? How does all this relate to spyware?
June 3rd, 2005 at 4:35 pm
CMM, no one here is in the business of spying on others :) I visited your blog and enjoyed reading about the alien abduction of your brain but did not think I am spying on you for a second. In this age of Google, information about everyone is available to everyone who knows how/where to look for it. Fair enough, spying pushes the concept beyond the limit of “freely available personal information” to “actively collected personal information against the will of their owners” and I assure you none of that happens here.
I should actually sit down and write a privacy statement for my blog to tell people it is ok to surfe my website, I wont show up on yoru door steps or blackmail you - will do that soon I promise.
It is difficult, without resolving to very twisted methods to actually find more personal information about anyone who visits. Web statistical packages give you a view of where the visitors come from (physically and virtually), information about the nature of their visit (what they did while they were here) and where they exited to (only the exit page is SOMETIMES recorded). Other than that, it is just things to do with the browser, IPs ISPs and timings.
So your personal information is safe. :)
June 4th, 2005 at 3:19 pm
For the sake of correctness. I said above:
Now, I have installed an Ajax link tracker which will tell me where the person exited to, if they followed a link from my page to the outside world. If they just went to the URL and typed the new address, then there is no way to tell where they were off to after leaving here.
June 4th, 2005 at 11:58 pm
Thanks, very informative! Mostly I was kidding about being spied on, I am just paranoid for the sake of being paranoid.
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