Brian
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Post by Brian on Feb 23, 2014 0:47:03 GMT -8
Four years ago, I started a thread to track the number of visitors to the Montrose Peace Vigil message board monthly and to note the origins of some of those IP addresses called The Traffic Report, which went on for 64 posts over seven pages. Because of the software upgrade by our host ProBoards on January 26, I'm starting fresh with a new thread. We've had a lot more visitors since the conversion. Here's where I left off in the previous thread: In the past 24 days, the peak guest total was 112, while the low was 51. Right now, the Info Center shows 63 guests in the past 24 hours. Of those, only 11 are Googlebots. Since then, the peak number of visitors was 187 and the low mark was 50 guests. The Info Center on the bottom of the homepage is now called Forum Information & Statistics. It says the Montrose Peace Vigil message board has had 122 visitors (not including members) in the past 24 hours. The new software won't allow me to see an entire day's IP addresses, so I can no longer count the Googlebots, but I see them when I check out the guests currently online, a function that ProBoards did not remove with the upgrade. I have been a ProBoards user since 2004 and a member of the ProBoards Support Forum since 2007. I started a thread on the ProBoards Support Forum to ask about getting the 24-hour list back, and after swiftly getting answers stretching three levels up the ProBoards hierarchy, I understand why they had to take away one of my favorite features. I can still survey the guests if I refresh every 15 minutes, so there will always be plenty to talk about here. |
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Post by Brian on Mar 26, 2014 23:00:10 GMT -8
Since January 23, the peak number of visitors was 187 and the low mark was 50 guests. The Forum Information & Statistics section at the bottom of the homepage says the Montrose Peace Vigil message board has had 122 visitors (not including members) in the past 24 hours. Time for my monthly marker: Since I wrote the last one, the visitors peaked at 182 and the lowest number was 51. As I post this report, the homepage shows 96 guests today. Traffic has remained steady since ProBoards upgraded the message board software two months ago. Years ago, I ran every IP address that arrived here through my favorite IP locator website to find out where it came from, who was the Internet Service Provider and often which organization owned the address. Then I would run each unknown address through two sites that keep databases of addresses used by spammers, who seldom posted here. After subtracting them, the search engine bots and the ads, I would be left with several IP addresses that probably belonged to actual human beings checking out the Montrose Peace Vigil message board. Guests were fewer back then. The previous ProBoards software also allowed administrators like me to view 24 hours of hits, along with the time each IP address visited. Last night, I copied the addresses every 15 minutes and pasted three hours worth on a Word document, but I only had time to search 17 of the 22. For all my effort, I only found one possible non-spamming human -- an IP address which is apparently subscribing to the message board through the RSS Feed link on the bottom of the homepage, which continually links the most recently updated posts. |
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Brian
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Post by Brian on Apr 23, 2014 23:00:11 GMT -8
Time for my monthly marker: Since February 23, the visitors peaked at 182 and the lowest number was 51. As I post this report, the homepage shows 96 guests today. Traffic has remained steady since ProBoards upgraded the message board software two months ago. Traffic has slowed since I wrote that post four weeks ago: The highest visitor count on the Montrose Peace Vigil message board was 85 and the lowest was 38. Strangely, the high and the low points were 24 hours apart. I've been working evenings six days a week, so I haven't had time to collect IP addresses and figure out what kind of traffic is missing, but I am curious. This month marked the message board's lowest peak guest count since April 2012. Right now, the Forum Information and Statistics on the homepage reads 47 guests in the past 24 hours. I also keep an eye on Next Exit, another ProBoards forum for fans of Tim and Neil Finn, where I've posted for ten full years. The members started drifting away in 2008 as Facebook took off, and now the board's 15 most Recent Posts go back to March 14. By comparison, our 10 most Recent Posts are just eight days old. Traffic there is still running at about half of ours, with peaks in the 50's and one recent low of just 18 accumulated guests. Back in 2012, Next Exit tallied half again as many guests as this message board had. |
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Post by Brian on May 28, 2014 23:02:53 GMT -8
In the past four weeks, the highest visitor count on the Montrose Peace Vigil message board was 85 and the lowest was 38. Right now, the Forum Information and Statistics box on the homepage reads 47 guests in the past 24 hours. Since then, the most number of visitors was 124 and the least was 37. As I go to press, I see 68 guests in the past 24 hours. This month's peak count puts the message board ticker back into its old normal range. That's because the search bots from Baidu, the Google of China that I wrote about last September, have returned. Unlike the Googlebots, Baidu's bots arrive simultaneously in groups, usually reading the same department while boosting our visitor numbers. By the way, I read recently that Baidu is opening a research subsidiary in Silicon Valley.  |
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Post by Brian on Jun 24, 2014 23:00:18 GMT -8
In the past five weeks, the highest number of visitors was 124 and the lowest was 37. As I go to press, I see 68 guests in the past 24 hours. In the past four weeks, the guest total topped at 169, with 47 as the low mark, which we hit the day after I wrote that. Traffic has been consistently higher since. Right now, the counter at the bottom of the homepage reads 143 guests. Every time that I've checked the IP addresses when the board has more than just a few guests in any 15 minute period, most of them are usually bots from the Baidu search engine. When you click on the link below and type Montrose Peace Vigil in quotation marks, you get the same links to the mentions of our group that I noted nine months ago -- with the addition of a link to the homepage of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace here in Los Angeles, which co-sponsored a movie screening with us and two other groups in May. The search also yields a link called Montrose Peace Vigil. Click on that and you get an unfamiliar page with only Chinese characters. I still cannot find links to this message board in English. www.baidu.com/ |
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Post by Brian on Jul 24, 2014 23:00:33 GMT -8
In the past four weeks, the guest total topped at 169, with 47 as the low mark. Right now, the counter at the bottom of the homepage reads 143 guests. Since then, the highest number of users online in the last 24 hours was 160 and the lowest was 30. The daily readings in between were also down slightly from the previous month. As I post this, the Montrose Peace Vigil message board had 95 guests yesterday, not including members. |
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Post by Brian on Aug 26, 2014 23:00:20 GMT -8
In the past month, the highest number of guests online in the last 24 hours was 160 and the lowest was 30. The daily readings in between were also down slightly from the previous month. As I post this, the Montrose Peace Vigil message board had 95 guests yesterday, not including members. I haven't seen swarms of bots from the Baidu search engine in China visiting the message board lately. Without them, the daily peaks are down significantly, back to April's level. In the past five weeks, the most guests counted at the bottom of the homepage was 92 and the least was 32. Right now, the Forum Information & Statistics zone reads 77 guests online in the last 24 hours. As I've mentioned, some of the guests are bots from Amazon's servers tracking our cookies so that ProBoards can sell ads on these pages. I've long been considering whether to pay ProBoards directly each month to omit them from the Montrose Peace Vigil message board, yet I still think they're harmless and even cute sometimes. My IP address with Verizon as my Internet service provider identifies me as a Panorama City or a Sylmar resident, so I often get ads for other Verizon products in Spanish. After I spent part of an evening drooling over a massive box set of Nils Lofgren CD's on Amazon, I constantly got ads for it here, on Yahoo and other websites for many days. And when Norm is online, I've seen displays for Disneyland. That surely cannot be a coincidence, if you know Norm and Pearl, who have been planning their next trip to the Magic Kingdom online for months. |
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Post by Brian on Sept 27, 2014 23:26:50 GMT -8
In the past five weeks, the most guests counted at the bottom of the Montrose Peace Vigil message board homepage was 92 and the least was 32. Right now, the Forum Information & Statistics zone reads 77 guests online in the last 24 hours. Since then, the highest number of guests was 92 again, and the lowest was 45. When the guest register isn't hitting a peak or a valley, I just take daily readings at 11:59 p.m. They've been ranging from the mid-60's to the high 70's most days this past month. As I post, the message board had 85 guests in the past day, which does not include the loyal members who are always logged in. Well, the summer's gone and the leaves are turning over/It's another day gone, I'm another year older -- I finally got a day off, so I'm listening to Chuck Prophet's wonderful new album while running IP addresses through a locator service and, if unidentified, a spam registry as well. I gathered 34 unique IP addresses that landed on our message board over seven random hours and ran all of them. I found the usual search engine bots and ad trackers that I always mention in this thread, but a lot fewer known spammers than I've recorded in past years. Among the clean local addresses, I identified a visitor using U-verse in Los Angeles and another who came through Verizon in Sylmar, which probably means a guest from Sunland-Tujunga, as I've learned. Was that you, Edmond? |
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Post by Brian on Oct 27, 2014 23:00:56 GMT -8
Since August 27, the highest number of guests was 92 and the lowest was 45. Daily readings have been ranging from the mid-60's to the high 70's most days. As I post, the message board had 85 guests in the past day, which does not include the loyal members who are always logged in. Over the past month, the number of guests shown in the Forum Information & Statistics at the bottom of the homepage has ranged from a high of 94 to a low of 37. The counter was between the mid-60's to the high 70's about half the time. Right now, the Montrose Peace Vigil message board had 64 unique IP addresses as guests in the past 24 hours. Besides the members who checked the box to stay logged in -- and whose names show for a full day every time they visit -- Anni and I hear from several people every month who tell us that they've read the board without logging in. Thank you for bringing living spirits to the guest numbers. |
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Post by Brian on Nov 30, 2014 0:00:22 GMT -8
Over the past month, the number of guests shown in the Forum Information & Statistics at the bottom of the homepage has ranged from a high of 94 to a low of 37. The counter was between the mid-60's to the high 70's about half the time. Right now, the Montrose Peace Vigil message board had 64 unique IP addresses as guests in the past 24 hours. In the month since, the counter has ranged from 77 to 37 accumulated guests per day. The peak number isn't as high as the previous month, yet visitor traffic has remained steady -- the daily readings have only sunk below the 48 mark on 5 of the past 33 days. As I post, the counter reads 57 users online in the past 24 hours. |
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