Tag Archives: Internet Explorer

A brief review of blog traffic for the past year

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I don’t pay as much attention to blog traffic for FML as I probably should. I know there are a lot of things I could improve if I paid more attention to the various details. Instead, I tend to look for trends and broad numbers and that’s about it.

This evening I checked summary statistics from Google Analytics for the past year. Here is what I found:

  • There were 6,713 unique visitors to the site, which averages out to about 18.4 visitors per day
  • Visitors tend to spend only about a minute on the site each visit
  • The browser used by visitors breaks down as follows:
    • Internet Explorer – 46.51%
    • Firefox – 41.53%
    • Safari – 9.65%
    • Mozilla – 1.02%
    • Netscape – .48%
  • Traffic sources include 38.36% of visitors who find FML via search engines; 31.68% who go directly to the site (in other words, the site is bookmarked or the URL is typed in directly); and 27.42% of traffic comes from referring sites. Of the 38.36% of visitors who find FML via a search engine, the vast majority of them uses Google (over 80%).
  • The vast majority of visitors uses Windows as their operating system (80.45%). 17.93% use Mac OS X. 1.38% use Linux.

I am especially pleased at the good showing for non-IE browsers. Something else that is of interest is what keywords people use in a search engine that leads them to FML. Here are some of the top keywords, aside from the obvious ones such as “family man librarian”: “portable browsers”, “everyone has a double”, “library related wordpress theme” and “praise you in the storm.”

[tags]blog traffic, google analytics[/tags]

New functionality from Zotero

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Zotero – The Next-Generation Research Tool » Blog Archive » Zotero and Google Tools Screencast

Oh, my. Thanks to Jay Datema for pointing out the above-mentioned blog posting from the Zotero wizards. Love it, love it, love it.

Ok, so back to reality, though. Fact #1: At my place of work, 99.9% of people are not allowed to have admin privileges on their PCs. (Fortunately I am, for now anyway, one of those lucky 0.1% who does have this ability.) Fact #2: The workplace standard browser is Internet Explorer.

Combine these two facts and what do you get? No way to benefit from this amazing tool, which is entirely based on Firefox.

How frustrating this is for me, because it is precisely this kind of tool that my library’s users would greatly benefit from.

The IT Nazis deeply frown on this (can we say, security hazard ten times in rapid succession with increasing volume?). I am so tired of — even though I do, I truly do understand why this attitude and caution are present — narrow-minded IT policies and practices that inhibit cost savings in so many ways. I’d better stop now before I say something I’ll really regret.

[tags]zotero, jay datema, firefox, internet explorer[/tags]

Some site statistics

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I decided to look at some website traffic statistics today for the period July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006. Here is what I found:

Number of Unique Visitors: 16,053

Total Number of Visitors: 55,699

Total Number of Hits: 256,267

Those are just some gross figures, but they are surprising to me, nevertheless.

Here is where things get a little more interesting. The following shows statistics for which web browsers are used by visitors to this site:

Unknown: 53%
Internet Explorer: 22%
Mozilla: 22%
Safari: .02%

I wonder what “Unknown” means? Also, I was really pleased to see that Mozilla is just as popular as Internet Explorer for visitors to this site.

I’m often curious about what leads people to the site. One way, obviously, is by keyword searches. Below is a list of the five keyword searches that most frequently lead people to this site:

stanley mccallum (32%)
nils oberg (13%)
family man librarian (8%)
library related wordpress theme (5%)
becky hickmott (5%)

I find this list particularly strange. Why on earth do people so frequently find my site by inputting “stanley mccallum” (the name of my maternal grandfather)?

One more statistic that I found interesting is that the overwhelming majority of visitors to this site use Cable/DSL (72%). Dialup users are still out there (7%).

Portable browsers

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I’ve known about portable browsers — the ones that can be installed on a USB drive, such as Firefox — for a few years. But I never really thought much about using them myself, that is, until I figured out how useful they are in situations where I do not or cannot have administrator privileges on my PC.

Last week I decided to give the portable version of Firefox a try. Then I also decided to see if someone had come up with a portable version of my favorite browser, Flock. Fortunately, someone has already thought of this. I installed the portable versions of Firefox and Flock on my USB drive and voila, I was freed from the oppressive and limiting strangehold of Internet Explorer! (I’m exaggerating a little of course, but I do hate IE.)

I know that there are limitations to their use but for now, I am really pleased with how the portable versions of these browsers work. Both Firefox and Flock run quite smoothly on my USB drive. I have noticed no degradation of load time or anything like that.

On a slight tangent…I am somewhat surprised that there hasn’t been more discussion among techie librarian folks about Flock. I think it’s a great tool, one that is well suited for the kinds of things that I like to do, such as blogging, photo sharing, sharing of bookmarks, etc. Almost all of these features are available in Firefox, too, but they are more nicely integrated in a single package with Flock. The major limitation I find with Flock is the lack of extensions that I find indispensable, including FlashBlock, TinyURL Creator, Adblock Filter Set Updater, and others.

Long live Mozilla

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OK, yes, I confess, I’m a Mac fanatic. I’m also a Mozilla lover. If at all possible, I refuse to use Internet Explorer on my WinXP PC at work. Instead, I use Mozilla Firefox, which gets my vote for the best web browser (or at least, one of the best) currently out there. The latest version even offers integrated RSS functionality. See this posting from Lockergnome’s RSS & Atom Tips to read more.

[Earlier today, Matt reminded me that he had recently posted something to his blog along the same lines as what I've written here. But his is a much more articulate critique of IE and defense of Firefox.]