Watching (web) traffic, waiting for the perfect storm

I’m not a trainspotter by any stretch of the imagination, but I have a weird admiration of trains and all things transport. Same goes for cars, buses, boats and planes, its something that I find interesting whether reading about transport history, or about the newest fastest plane, train or mag-lev, or simply watching Top Gear or Fifth Gear on the televisision. But recently I’ve been watching a different kind of traffic. Something far more boring, and about as eventful as a small country town, and that’s the web traffic graph for this site.

You may remember a week or so ago I wrote a few thoughts about the release of the new version of Ubuntu, due to which I was riding a tidal wave of visits (in comparison to the previous time this blog has been open) for a number of days totalling over 400 page hits in 5 days (almost half the total hits since I moved the site to this new domain). Don’t laugh! This is good for HD911, any self respecting site probably gets this figure within an hour, or the likes of google whom I imagine hits this figure every nth of a nanosecond.

 Dismal Beginnings

Since the Ubuntu boom of late October things have dwindled completely, to a point where I’m averaging less than 20 hits a day now. Yes, like the impending recession after the mining boom, or the transport slump in the U.S since September 11 (why I can even attempt to compare this, I don’t know), my webgraph looks a lot like the recent stock performance of Northern Rock bank after their recent credit/lending crisis.

There’s only one reason for this too, I’ve got to pull my finger out and post some interesting content.  Time will tell, but I’ve got forces working against me, like my mediocre writing ability, these random darting thoughts in my head,  these bats in the sky, (Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?) or the damn snakes on this plane.  But let it be known, the vision of HD911 is to grow from its meagre beginnings to become something, and do this it will.  Someday anyway.

But its been interesting none the less.  We’ve recently launched three sites at work and its been interesting seeing the different interest in each due to product knowledge, advertising and type of the site.  For instance, our company site, new revamp, which has always been a solid performer has been on the increase ever since the launch.  No boom, just rising steadily.  Another, which has had a heap of marketing and a push in the past is dwindling now where as another with short term (I won’t say viral, but similar) marketing has gone from being a no name to having a huge influx of users on a daily basis.  I’ve also realised this Search Enging Optimisation (SEO) stuff is not for me, least not as a full time job anyway! I’m a doing man, and working in a position where you carefully lay the ground work for possible future gain is a little to unexciting for me.  It’s vitally important though.

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6 Responses to “Watching (web) traffic, waiting for the perfect storm”

  1. Henry Says:

    Are you looking for more traffic to boost your advertising revenue?

    Don’t worry dude, I check your blog all the time ;)

    We start our big house hunt tomorrow, and hopefully I will also finally make it to the gym in the morning before work. It was Melbourne cup day today, I have no idea what happened.

    The best thing about it? The ACT has declared it a public holiday. It has now taken the lead from Canberra Day as the most dodgy public holiday that I am happy to celebrate.

  2. Henry Says:

    I have one suggestion for improving your site actually…can you make the banner a link back to the main page or something?

    It’s shitting me to hit back twice to get back there from commenting on your blog entries :p

  3. admin Says:

    haha, nah. Not advertising revenue. I’d have to have a serious attraction for that to work, like paris hilton vids, or a torrent list :P Just hopefully build up a loyal user base (such as yourself) and then take over the world! *cough*

    Go the house hunt, I’ll send you some pics of ours when we move in finally. Should be awesome, and like you, we’ll be doing the shared living thing, which should be fun as well.

    I’ve been reading a few posts about Melbourne Cup on Whirlpool wondering why I hadn’t heard about it.. errr. Stupid me! Awesome Idea for a public holiday.. They should do the same with the Grand final too (money public holiday in sept!)

    And yes, I’ll change the banner.

  4. admin Says:

    Actually, there’s supposed to be a link to the other pages (Home, About, etc) which seems to have dissapeared.

  5. Henry Says:

    I just tried out the shiny new banner link, very nice! Melbourne cup shmelbourne cup. it’s even more boring and over done than the freaking election…at least it only happens for one day.

  6. admin Says:

    heheh! Still, its a public holiday.

    Must be Election fever over in ol oz now though hey?

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