Low Site Traffic?

[NOIRTRASH]

Belief isn't knowledge.

Work on your writing and its popularity will take care of itself.

 

[sr71plt]

Just curious, how does anyone know this?

Not necessarily countless, but there members of the GB forum who proudly express surprise that there is a story element to Literotica while they are hazing someone who makes the mistake of asking a story-related question on the GB. And when you check their accounts out, no stories or favoriting is in evidence. there are other playground forums, as well, that don't reflect that there is a story element to Literotica. Even this forum doesn't have a direct link back to the story file.

 

[lovecraft68]

Just curious, how does anyone know this?

Experience. I post in the GB and ghost around other forums. A lot of people are here just for the forum interaction, picture threads, chat, personals etc...and not for stories.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Experience. I post in the GB and ghost around other forums. A lot of people are here just for the forum interaction, picture threads, chat, personals etc...and not for stories.

So countless, a lot... with further query it might some, a few, a bloke and his dog. In other words, nothing quantifiable except the relatively low numbers of folk who post in the boards, versus the total site traffic on Lit, which is what? 100s (1000s to be generous but I doubt it) versus millions?

There are some, sure, who never read here, but how many? Nobody knows. Some might base a religion on it, but I wouldn't

 

[sr71plt]

So countless, a lot... with further query it might some, a few, a bloke and his dog. In other words, nothing quantifiable except the relatively low numbers of folk who post in the boards, versus the total site traffic on Lit, which is what? 100s (1000s to be generous but I doubt it) versus millions?

There are some, sure, who never read here, but how many? Nobody knows. Some might base a religion on it, but I wouldn't

Why does it matter to you?

 

[lovecraft68]

So countless, a lot... with further query it might some, a few, a bloke and his dog. In other words, nothing quantifiable except the relatively low numbers of folk who post in the boards, versus the total site traffic on Lit, which is what? 100s (1000s to be generous but I doubt it) versus millions?

There are some, sure, who never read here, but how many? Nobody knows. Some might base a religion on it, but I wouldn't

Fine, want to play smart ass?

From the bottom of the forum home page

members- 2,046,081

How many views are gotten on stories in their 'prime time' of five days to a week?

So I'll change countless to over one million. Better?

 

[NotWise]

Getting closer to the OP, I've tracked views on my stories for the last year and a half. The 'new story' effect makes it hard to identify trends, but my impression is that I'm getting more views now than I did a year ago.

 

[SimonDoom]

Fine, want to play smart ass?

From the bottom of the forum home page

members- 2,046,081

How many views are gotten on stories in their 'prime time' of five days to a week?

So I'll change countless to over one million. Better?

I assume a lot of these are old members -- people who read stories here at one time but no longer do so. Although there are 2 million plus members, right now as I write there are 641 users online (I assume that's the number on the forums, not the site). That number is small compared to the number or story readers in a given hour on this site. An individual story can get thousands of views in a single hour, so the number of readers online in any given hour is much greater than the number of forum participants. I had no idea there even were people that visited this site but didn't read the stories. That seems odd to me, but I guess it shouldn't.

 

[SimonDoom]

Getting closer to the OP, I've tracked views on my stories for the last year and a half. The 'new story' effect makes it hard to identify trends, but my impression is that I'm getting more views now than I did a year ago.

That's probably more indicative of the effect of having published more stories, than it is reflective of the number of site readers/visitors. The more stories you publish, the more followers you get, and the more views you get, not just for new stories but for old ones too. There's a cumulative effect.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Fine, want to play smart ass?

From the bottom of the forum home page

members- 2,046,081

How many views are gotten on stories in their 'prime time' of five days to a week?

So I'll change countless to over one million. Better?

No, not playing smart ass at all. Just wanting to see what empirical evidence there is as to readers vs non-readers, which is what my curiosity was all about, and what MY enquiry was all about - and what your original comment was about.

Your response refers to the number of members here, but how do you get from that number to state a view that some (implied) high percentage of those members aren't here reading, but here only because of the other Lit offerings? That's what I'm curious about. Your reply has gone off at a tangent - yes, we all know how many members there are, but how does anybody know how many of those members are or are not readers? I still contend nobody knows that.

I'm also perplexed as to your hostility in your reply, to be honest - do you constantly go through life feeling you are being attacked, and thus have to defend yourself by attacking back? Lighten up - I really was "just curious".

Still, you've got Pilot putting his two cents worth in, also querying my curiosity, so that's a first, him sorta kinda taking your side.

If anybody has any kind of empirical evidence on this matter, I'm sure there are others who would like to see it, but I still suspect (in the words of Stephen Fry and QI), nobody knows.

 

[NotWise]

That's probably more indicative of the effect of having published more stories, than it is reflective of the number of site readers/visitors. The more stories you publish, the more followers you get, and the more views you get, not just for new stories but for old ones too. There's a cumulative effect.

That's logical, but I'm not sure about how that significant it is. There are a lot of things that go into creating views and I certainly don't understand them all.

 

[SimonDoom]

That's logical, but I'm not sure about how that significant it is. There are a lot of things that go into creating views and I certainly don't understand them all.

I can't say how it is for everyone, but I can say, having observed my stories and the views they get fairly carefully, that each story you publish compounds the number of views your already existing stories get. You are constantly increasing the total number of eyeballs on your stories, and that means more people who may choose to read all your stories. When I publish a new story, it picks up the pace of new views for old stories, which sometimes get picked as favorites or prompt someone to follow me, and that in turn increases the pool of people who are likely to view -- and like -- my new stories.

 

[RejectReality]

This forum is a subdomain. Conveniently, Alexa tracks what percentages of visitors go to top 4 or 5 subdomains of a site.

If you open the link I provided earlier and scroll down to the bottom of the page, you'll find the forum subdomain listed.

You'll see that the traffic coming to the forum amounts to a fart in a whirlwind. Even the German language subdomain gets more traffic.

There's the hard data.

 

[SimonDoom]

This forum is a subdomain. Conveniently, Alexa tracks what percentages of visitors go to top 4 or 5 subdomains of a site.

If you open the link I provided earlier and scroll down to the bottom of the page, you'll find the forum subdomain listed.

You'll see that the traffic coming to the forum amounts to a fart in a whirlwind. Even the German language subdomain gets more traffic.

There's the hard data.

That was interesting. Tags.literotica.com is the second most visited page on this site. I don't know how one even navigates to that page. There's no link to it on the home page. I would have thought that people navigate to the new story page first, or to the category story page first. Interesting.

 

[RejectReality]

The new control panel has a direct link in the menu to the tags page. You can also reach it by clicking on any tag at the end of a story.

 

[sr71plt]

Still, you've got Pilot putting his two cents worth in, also querying my curiosity, so that's a first, him sorta kinda taking your side.

I call 'em as I see 'em. I don't have to be team sports doctrinaire. What I see in the GB is a lot of gamesters invited there to toy with each other, thinking they are or so clever and witty, and sticking there because they are tossed off other discussion boards when they act that way--and that very few of them have anything to do with the Literotica story elements.

 

[HeyAll]

Some extra thoughts:

1) People read the stories they want to read. If you look at the Hubs, a lot of the stories don't seem appealing and/or are parts of long chapters. So while it can look like there are less viewers based on less votes/favs, that may be because readers skim for antything good and pass for the day.

That also explains why every so often there are stories that are really popular. That can't happen if readers aren't there.

2) The traffic is still there, but that doesn't mean that readers are reading the new stories. If you look at the feedback portal for any catagory, a lot of the comments are for old stories. Perhaps people use the search function to find what they want, have favorite authors, or had favorited stories they hadn't gotten to you.

 

[SimonDoom]

If anybody has any kind of empirical evidence on this matter, I'm sure there are others who would like to see it, but I still suspect (in the words of Stephen Fry and QI), nobody knows.

As Rejectreality has pointed out, we do have some data. The number of people on the forums, together, as I write, is 814. The number of readers almost certainly is in the thousands. I am sure that's true because there are individual stories that get thousands of views in a single hour, so the number of total site visitor/readers in an hour must be some multiple of that, because there are a lot of categories and a lot of readers with very focused reading interests. If that's so, then there are many more readers than forum participants.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I call 'em as I see 'em. I don't have to be team sports doctrinaire. What I see in the GB is a lot of gamesters invited there to toy with each other, thinking they are or so clever and witty, and sticking there because they are tossed off other discussion boards when they act that way--and that very few of them have anything to do with the Literotica story elements.

Yes, I took one look at the GB when I first joined Lit and thought, you have got to be kidding. And left. Having seen what passes for political debate more recently, AH is high art and tea with the Queen, by comparison.

So yes, you're probably right, not a lot to do with reading going on at the GB. But as RejectReality notes, if the traffic is a fart in a whirlwind to the forums, then Lit is mostly a reader site. Which is what I thought in the first place - I note also SimonDoom's empirical take on the matter.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

Yes, I took one look at the GB when I first joined Lit and thought, you have got to be kidding. And left. Having seen what passes for political debate more recently, AH is high art and tea with the Queen, by comparison.

So yes, you're probably right, not a lot to do with reading going on at the GB. But as RejectReality notes, if the traffic is a fart in a whirlwind to the forums, then Lit is mostly a reader site. Which is what I thought in the first place - I note also SimonDoom's empirical take on the matter.

AH is for numnutzs who ask: Help me find Mike Hunt, please!!!!

 

[ChloeTzang]

But as RejectReality notes, if the traffic is a fart in a whirlwind to the forums, then Lit is mostly a reader site. Which is what I thought in the first place - I note also SimonDoom's empirical take on the matter.

Well, I did a little empirical investigation of my own and asked my partner coz he was the one that pointed me at LIT. He's been reading here off and on for a few years, well before he met me, and he didn't even know the forums existed until I started here. He just browses thru stories. Most of the reader feedback I get is similar. They enjoy the stories and the author interaction but they don't come over to the forums at all.

 

[NOIRTRASH]

The simple solution is to make a brief survey of 30 readers. The validity is about 95%.

 

[sr71plt]

The simple solution is to make a brief survey of 30 readers. The validity is about 95%.

27 of whom won't respond. Why should they? Why would anyone think that readers who aren't responding to the stories they read respond to some unknown account name wanting them to fill out a survey?

 

[SimonDoom]

The simple solution is to make a brief survey of 30 readers. The validity is about 95%.

It would be difficult for one of us to do this in a way that would yield a statistically valid result, in part because, as Pilot points out, the response rate likely would be very low, and also because it would be hard to get a random and representative sample of the whole.

The site owner could do it very easily without a survey -- just look at stats on page visits.

Does anyone know: does the site owner ever share info about the site? Stats? Readership info?

 

[NOIRTRASH]

It would be difficult for one of us to do this in a way that would yield a statistically valid result, in part because, as Pilot points out, the response rate likely would be very low, and also because it would be hard to get a random and representative sample of the whole.

The site owner could do it very easily without a survey -- just look at stats on page visits.

Does anyone know: does the site owner ever share info about the site? Stats? Readership info?

I made an A in grad schools stats and research methods. I guess I wasn't paying attention. PILOTs credentials are what, I forget? He's an imaginary stat expert too?

So long as you don't know the readers, theyre random. Hunters and fishermen do it all the time. I do it when I test the pH of my soil....I look around to see what grows in neighbors yards. I don't hire the county ag agent to test the dirt. I do what ignorant chicken kickers did 200 ye ars ago when tests didn't exist and PILOT couldn't help them.