Jul 0810
In recent months, several clients reported declines in their Web site traffic. “Where did all my traffic go?” they asked anxiously. Turns out, the traffic is still there, but it’s dispersed and these clients have to look at usage reports from different sources to learn their true usage patterns and volume.
The number one reason for the seeming decline is splitting up Web traffic over multiple domains. For example, many clients are moving to Web-based membership databases hosted by their providers. Which means they now have usage at www.association.org and www2.association.org. Their Web traffic is now on two different servers, in different log files. So, if a lot of your functionality (e.g., member directory, events calendar, meeting registration, manage profile) moved to another server, your traffic on the main Web site could take a nosedive. The solution? Get usage reports from your providers, arrange to download log files and run reports yourself, or add Google analytics or Webtrends on Demand to your header files to get consolidated reports.
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Jul 0807
There is a raging debate in the office re: full vs. partial RSS feeds and e-mail updates.
The question is which option drives more traffic to the Web site?
This blog publishes partial RSS feeds and e-mail updates. You get the title and the first 60+ words and a link to the full article. The thinking is that you would get the gist of the article, then click through to read the rest of the article. While viewing the full article on the site, you might be enticed to click on past postings, the favorites on the right, or perhaps the related projects at the bottom.
Sounds logical right? But wait, there are many some views:
According to Rick Klau, VP of Publishing Services at FeedBurner, there appears to be no
significant difference in click through rates between full and partial RSS feeds.
http://thewrongadvices.com/2007/04/20/full-vs-partial-rss-feeds/
Jonathan Christopher of Monday by Noon, defends partial feeds because of the scraper sites that publish full articles on their sites and possible negative penalty that search engines associate with duplicate content. Klau agrees with Christopher on the issue of scraper sites. http://mondaybynoon.com/2006/09/04/partial-versus-full-rss-feeds/
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