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YachtForums July 2010; 300,000 Unique Visitors...!!!

Discussion in 'General Yachting Discussion' started by YachtForums, Jul 28, 2010.

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  1. YachtForums

    YachtForums Administrator

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    Over the past 3 months, YF has seen an extraordinary growth period that has resulted in an interesting divergence, indicative of a content-rich website reaching a deeper level of propagation. In December 2009, we published the images of ‘Absolutely’, resulting in a large increase in traffic as forums and news sites around the net began linking to YF. At that time, we set a new record for monthly hits and unique visitors:

    • Hits: 38,521,864
    • Visitors: 218,923

    In January 2010, we went live with the video ‘Absolutely’ and blasted past the December stats…

    • Hits: 43,006,093
    • Visitors: 244,370

    February, March & April of 2010 saw a return to normalcy, with an average of 36 million hits a month and around 215,000 monthly readers. What has happened since is nothing short of phenomenal. I haven’t paid attention to our stats for the past few months because I’m working on a project unrelated to YF and I’ve had a busy travel schedule. In May of 2010, we had a sharp increase in visitors that set a new record, yet we hadn’t published anything out of the ordinary for that month. At first, I assumed this was from PMY’s forum closing down, but the extra 30,000 visitors that came to YF in May is probably more traffic than PMY had.

    • Hits: 36,962,464
    • Visitors: 246,835

    While I was galloping the globe in June, YF’s traffic swelled once again, setting another record that had me double checking our stats program with diagnostics.

    • Hits: 36,430,189
    • Visitors: 263,451

    A sharp rise in stats for one month is usually news related. A 2 month rise can be a precursor, but after 3 months… it’s a pattern. And a very interesting divergence. I’ll explain after today’s stats, which is only July 28th, leaving another 4 days of stats to accumulate.

    • Hits: 35,612,924
    • Visitors: 278,917 (as of July 27th)

    For July, our daily number of unique IP addresses logging onto YF will narrowly miss 10,000 per day. Doing the math on this, we will exceed 300,000 visitors for the month of July!!!

    Getting back to the divergence… as you know, “Hits” are a meaningless measure of a website’s performance. “Unique visitors” is the real gauge of a website’s traffic. Typically, Hits and Visitors rise or fall in sympathy, but when the number of Visitors rises sharply, yet the Hits remain relatively constant… this departure is associated with websites that become top tier in a sector. In other words, the site is not dependent on various links from around the net. Instead, traffic comes as a result of website becoming a bookmark and a benchmark.

    I’ve attached a copy of YF’s Webalizer chart. Disregard Aug-Sept-Oct from last year because I flushed the stats to improve server performance. The stats take huge system resources! The number of Hits are located on the top left of the chart. The number of Visitors is in yellow on the right side. Notice the number of referring sites (in orange) is declining, because I don't solicit outside links. It only brings curiosity seekers, not seriously interested readers. What's most important is the quality of our readership, which is clearly on the rise.

    With 300,000 visitors, it’s safe to say we may have a larger circulation than any yachting magazine in the world. And probably more than a few of them combined.

    How did this happen? Because of you guys!

    ***​

    Attached Files:

  2. brunick

    brunick Senior Member

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    Thumbs Up!

    i miss the 'I Like that' Button, just like in facebook :D
    [​IMG]
  3. NYCAP123

    NYCAP123 Senior Member

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    Quality and diversity bring success, and you've got both going on here. Keep up te good work. Thanks. That's to the admins AND the contributors.:)
  4. GFC

    GFC Senior Member

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    Nicely done. I'm sure there are many other boating and non-boating websites that would kill for those numbers.

    Keep up the good work and we'll keep on clicking!
  5. Kevin

    Kevin YF Moderator

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    It's been pretty great being a part of this ever-growing new media empire of yours Carl. :D I've enjoyed all the time spent here... even when I'm nuking spammers! (That's not so much enjoyable as... satisfying!)
  6. YachtForums

    YachtForums Administrator

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    Not quite an empire yet, YF barely breaks even. But it’s not about money. It’s about creating a better resource, which just happened to blossom into a better media. And somewhere along the way, it became home for a lot of us. I’ve said this before and it bears repeating… YF doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to all of us and specifically those who have shared their knowledge here. I’m proud to be a part of this!
  7. Ward

    Ward Senior Member

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    Excellent!

    One small thing that I like (and I don't know if it's a factor in the traffic, but I bet it helps keep people here) is that you have rules and you enforce them. No talk of owners, no links out to other sites, pictures max 640, ads have to have a certain structure, etc. I think the fact that it's not anything goes makes this a nicer place to hang out.
  8. revdcs

    revdcs Senior Member

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    The figures speak for themselves. YF is unique and sets the standard that all other sites should aspire to. I know Carl insists that this success is down to the members and contributors and he is right. But none of this would have happened without the vast amount of work that Carl, the Mods and the Associate Members have put in. They should be very proud of their creation.
  9. PropBet

    PropBet Senior Member

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    Is Everything!
    Agreed and kudos to all.

    Especially Carl and the admins / mods who keep the place running smoothly.
    Content brings new users. Great content consistently updating keeps them. YF's has them both.

    Nicely done Carl. That's a heck of a statistic that many a sites would crawl through broken glass to say they have.
  10. Arniev

    Arniev Senior Member

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    CONGRATULATIONS, CARL!
    ANOTHER GREAT MILESTONE FOR YF!

    :)
  11. travler

    travler Senior Member

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    keep up the good work happy to be part of the group

    on the move travler
  12. airship

    airship Senior Member

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    Location:
    French Riviera...
    Congratulations Carl.

    Does this mean that you'll be sending out another lot of "Yacht Forums" polo shirts anytime soon (mine's a M size)...?!

    For what it's worth (ie. the competition) if any are indeed worthwhile commenting on, here's my 5 minute review:

    1) http://www.***************.com/ : no discussions allowed here - presumably why so many major players (ie. brokers, builders etc. like to showcase" their products on this "commercially-run" website)...do they pay taxes anywhere?!

    2) http://www.************.com/ : a privately-run website which still has the best database on superyachts. Apparently, the person behind the website is emplyed professionally in the industry and nowadays does not have enough time to update the website manually, which is sad.

    3) http://******************.zeroforum.com/zeroforum?id=10 : the Power and Motoryachts Forum (of the same printed magazine) no longer exists apparently. Yet another reasonably open "yacht forum", where for whatever reasons (undoubtedly including some serious liability issues, involving very "low-profile" legal cases involving yacht owners or managers, was forced to close...). I'm particularly upset about this website, because there were an important number of "industry professionals", representing the big European shipyards who were regular contributors to this website. Now that this particular website appears to be well and truly dead and buried, I would like to invite all their former contributors to YachtForums.com...

    But how do you do this when then website itself is dead (ie. personal messages, emails etc. don't work anymore)...?! Whatever, I hope that they all find themselves in Carl's tentacles before too long... :)
  13. AMG

    AMG YF Moderator

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    From what I remember, many of those who were members there are also members here.
  14. YachtForums

    YachtForums Administrator

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    It took us 6 years to reach a monthly average of 200,000 readers. Over the past 3 months, we've seen a whopping 30% increase in traffic. Here's the final tally for July 2010... 309,324 visitors for the month! :)

    Attached Files:

  15. Arniev

    Arniev Senior Member

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    Congrats again, Carl!
    YF's Web Analytics summary is amazing ... thanks to your hard work and dedication!
    Hope the Birthday Celebration went well too!
    Arnie
    :)
  16. CaptTom

    CaptTom Senior Member

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    Carl,
    Don't know how you do it, other than the 100's of hours you spend behind the keyboard, and can't speak to the big jumps in the past months, but at least all the charts are headed in the right direction.
    My guess is that YF took a little blue pill because all the numbers keep staying up there. No dysfunction here (except among some of us members).
  17. YachtForums

    YachtForums Administrator

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    I got YF to it's first few million hits with good content & coding, but it's been the collective knowledge of YF's members that has driven the rest of our traffic. We know YF's reviews generate a lot of traffic because the forum index pages show the views and they're off the chart, but the majority of people come to YF for the experience and expertise of our members.

    Prior to the Internet, information was limited to local docks, marinas, magazines and boat shows. Only a fraction of the world's population can afford yachts, leaving most owners on their own to source information, but with about 50% of our members owning boats 50 feet and over, the wealth of information available to them, as well as buyers, is driving our traffic and creating a new informational paradigm.

    Gone are the days when a buyer depends solely on the advise of a broker or salesman to buy a yacht. Today, buyers turn to the Internet and the opinions of experienced, like-minded people to make big dollar decisions.

    You guys have made YF rock. I'm just here to keep the boat from capsizing.
  18. walkinginshadow

    walkinginshadow Member

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    sweden
    Hi
    Are you shore about that nummbers?
    Think DHCP....
    :)
  19. YachtForums

    YachtForums Administrator

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    More sure than your spelling. ;)
  20. JWY

    JWY Senior Member

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    In spite of the decades I've been in yachting, personally and professionally, I can't be an expert in everything. YF is where I come when I need information, whether technical or logistic. I've never posed a question and not received answers or opinions from true experts. I check in on YF at least daily to see what else I can learn. Thanks for my making this great resource of knowledge, experience, and camaraderie available.

    Judy