I'm curious to see what kind of web-traffic boost that I get from the PBS show. Other TV/radio shows have generally been a small bump -- they don't compare to the huge traffic that I get from something like a Slashdot or Wired article.

Google is still the search-engine-of-choice. However, hits from Wikipedia are also a steady presence -- they seem to come in more or less equally from multiple pages, but are only about 5% of my traffic. The majority comes from StumbleUpon, with my "Famous Unsolved Codes" page being the main draw. That's about 25% of traffic, followed by about 20% from search engines, a few percent from miscellaneous articles here and there (like Kim Zetter's "Wired" article sends me a steady stream of traffic). Also, not reflected in those numbers, are those visitors who aren't "referred" to my site, but just come in directly.

Anyway, here's the current summary:

VISITS

Total 1,036,534
Average Per Day 412
Average Visit Length 3:52
Last Hour 25
Today 187
This Week 2,887

PAGE VIEWS

Total 2,326,425
Average Per Day 809
Average Per Visit 2.0
Last Hour 49
Today 343
This Week 5,661

Referring domains

1,070 stumbleupon.com 26.8%
735 google.com 18.4%
226 en.wikipedia.org 5.7%
131 wired.com 3.3%
109 search.yahoo.com 2.7%
97 google.co.uk 2.4%
71 dailygalaxy.com 1.8%
50 images.google.com 1.3%
46 google.ca 1.2%
39 elonka.com 1.0%
38 google.co.in 1.0%
35 google.com.au 0.9%
19 npr.org 0.5%
18 google.de 0.5%
13 google.com.br 0.3%
12 search.live.com 0.3%
10 artdc.org 0.3%
10 google.com.ph 0.3%
10 google.fr 0.3%

Referring webpages:
1,021 http://www.stumbleupon.com/ref...lonka.com%2FUnsolvedCodes.html 25.5%
76 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryptos 1.9%
70 http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_...g/2007/07/angley-va----th.html 1.8%
69 http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2005/01/66334 1.7%
37 http://www.wired.com/culture/l...ws/2005/01/66334?currentPage=3 0.9%
34 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beale_ciphers 0.9%
34 http://www.stumbleupon.com/ref....elonka.com/UnsolvedCodes.html 0.9%
23 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography 0.6%
18 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5356012 0.5%
15 http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=kryptos 0.4%
12 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famous_ciphertexts 0.3%
12 http://www.google.com/search?q...n-US:official&client=firefox-a 0.3%
10 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%27Agapeyeff_cipher 0.3%
10 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithy_code 0.3%
9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Sanborn 0.2%
9 http://search... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

Well, my page views at elonka.com are running over 2.2 million right now, but another milestone is coming up with "unique users". As of this writing, the counter is at 999,225.

So, if anyone reading this happens to spot it rollover to 1,000,000 please let me know. I'll give you a cookie or something. ;)

Elonka :)

Happy odometer day to elonka.com

Site statistics, courtesy of Sitemeter:

VISITS

Total 872,795
Average Per Day 771
Average Visit Length 4:16
Last Hour 33
Today 244
This Week 5,397

PAGE VIEWS

Total 2,000,790 ***************************
Average Per Day 1,643
Average Per Visit 2.1
Last Hour 67
Today 477
This Week 11,504

Top referring domains
1,132 google.com 28.3%
461 stumbleupon.com 11.5%
236 en.wikipedia.org 5.9%
149 google.co.uk 3.7%
113 google.ca 2.8%
98 search.yahoo.com 2.5%
59 images.google.com 1.5%
58 matt-thornton.net 1.5%
57 blackstump.com.au 1.4%
57 elonka.com 1.4%
52 google.co.in 1.3%
50 demon.twinflame.org 1.3%
48 google.com.au 1.2%
39 wired.com 1.0%
28 google.com.ph 0.7%
22 google.nl 0.6%
22 search.msn.com 0.6%
16 google.co.nz 0.4%
15 ask.com 0.4%

Top referring webpages

461 http://www.stumbleupon.com/refer.html 11.5%
71 http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Kryptos 1.8%
66 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Da_Vinci_Code 1.7%
57 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kryptos 1.4%
50 http://demon.twinflame.org/arc.../2003/08/the_da_vinci_code.php 1.3%
49 http://www.matt-thornton.net/topics.php?topic=14&subcat=94 1.2%
43 http://www.blackstump.com.au/anew.htm 1.1%
41 http://www.google.com/search?h...n&q=kryptos&btnG=Google Search 1.0%
23 http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=KRYPTOS 0.6%
22 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da_Vinci_Code 0.6%
19 http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=kryptos&meta= 0.5%
18 http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,66334-0.html 0.5%
16 http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=king tut CIA 0.4%
15 http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=king tut cia 0.4%
14 http://elonka.com/kryptos/ 0.4%
14 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beale_ciphers 0.4%
13 http://dir.yahoo.com/Social_Sc.../Cryptology/Codes_and_Ciphers/ 0.3%
13 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithy_code 0.3%
12 http://www.blackstump.com.au/new.htm 0.3%

Top referring search engines

1,118 google.com 28.0%
149 google.co.uk 3.7%
113 google.ca 2.8%
98 search.yahoo.com 2.5%
50 google.co.in 1.3%
47 google.com.au 1.2%
28 google.com.ph 0.7%
26 images.google.com 0.7%
22 search.msn.com 0.6%
22 google.nl 0.6%
16 google.co.nz 0.4%
15 ask.com 0.4%
14 google.se 0.4%
10 google.pl 0.3%
10 google.it 0.3%
10 google.dk ... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

My elonka.com site is closing in on the "2 million page views" mark. At normal traffic levels it'll happen sometime during the summer, though if another big media blitz happens it could roll over in a few days. We'll see!

VISITS
Total 840,457
Average Per Day 1,233
Average Visit Length 4:26
Last Hour 53
Today 383
This Week 8,628

PAGE VIEWS

Total 1,928,104
Average Per Day 2,739
Average Per Visit 2.2
Last Hour 110
Today 882
This Week 19,173

Referring sites: - Wikipedia keeps climbing, and has overtaken stumbleupon. And Digg is no longer showing up in the top list

1,296 google.com 32.4%
264 en.wikipedia.org 6.6%
230 stumbleupon.com 5.8%
212 google.co.uk 5.3%
166 google.ca 4.2%
104 search.yahoo.com 2.6%
92 matt-thornton.net 2.3%
56 google.com.ph 1.4%
51 google.com.au 1.3%
44 search.msn.com 1.1%
42 demon.twinflame.org 1.1%
42 elonka.com 1.1%
41 wired.com 1.0%
38 google.co.in 1.0%
37 images.google.com 0.9%
28 npr.org 0.7%

Referring search engines: (Google google google)

1,729 Not referred from a search engine 43.2%
1,282 google.com 32.1%
212 google.co.uk 5.3%
164 google.ca 4.1%
104 search.yahoo.com 2.6%
56 google.com.ph 1.4%
51 google.com.au 1.3%
44 search.msn.com 1.1%
37 google.co.in 0.9%
24 images.google.com 0.6%
20 google.com.sg 0.5%
17 ask.com 0.4%
14 google.co.za 0.4%
11 google.be 0.3%
10 google.ie 0.3%
10 google.de 0.3%
10 google.co.nz 0.3%
9 google.nl 0.2%
9 google.es 0.2%

Search words: - The "king tut" and "one who knows" terms are from the webquest trivia quiz at danbrown.com

1,728 Not referred from a search engine 43.2%
547 kryptos 13.7%
181 king tut cia 4.5%
72 king tut and cia 1.8%
59 kryptos the one who knows 1.5%
51 king tut and the cia 1.3%
36 decrypted text of kryptos 0.9%
29 the one who knows 0.7%
27 the one who knows kryptos 0.7%
26 king tut, cia 0.7%
23 ciphers 0.6%
21 kryptos code 0.5%
19 kryptos "the one who knows" 0.5%
16 kryptos sculpture 0.4%
14 kryptos exact location 0.4%
14 cia and king tut 0.4%
14 37 57 6.5 n 77 8 44 w 0.4%
13 cia king tut 0.3%
12 king tut cia 0.3%

I was enjoying watching the "bumps" of traffic move through my website over the last week. According to sitemeter, the biggest traffic definitely came from the AOL news screen -- during the several hours that the story was up yesterday, traffic was consistently in the 1K-3K/hour range, and overall traffic for the day (31K visitors) was double what Slashdot did (15.8K). Highest Slashdot hour: 3,900. Highest AOL hour: 3,600.

Total "since the webcounter was turned on" traffic to elonka.com:

Total 806,187
Average Per Day 9,707
Average Visit Length 5:25
Last Hour 131
Today 1,036
This Week 67,951

PAGE VIEWS

Total 1,850,868
Average Per Day 30,536
Average Per Visit 3.1
Last Hour 252
Today 2,520
This Week 213,754

At the moment, traffic has scaled back to a dull roar, with hundreds per hour right now instead of thousands, but here's the "referring site" list for the last few thousand visitors:

2,076 articles.news.aol.com 51.9%
352 google.com 8.8%
313 nytimes.com 7.8%
273 wired.com 6.8%
80 schneier.com 2.0%
51 elonka.com 1.3%
43 en.wikipedia.org 1.1%
34 search.yahoo.com 0.9%
23 sploid.com 0.6%
21 stumbleupon.com 0.5%
20 google.ca 0.5%
19 aolsvc.news.aol.com 0.5%
19 slashdot.org 0.5%
14 google.co.in 0.4%
12 google.com.au 0.3%
10 google.com.ph 0.3%
10 images.google.com 0.3%
10 it.slashdot.org 0.3%
10 search.msn.com 0.3%

Before the AOL story, traffic was pretty evenly split between the NY Times, the Wired story, and Schneier's blog. Also, interestingly enough, though the story *did* show up on Digg, it never took off, and I never got more than 1% of hits from digg. I'm not sure what this means, since there was obviously plenty of public interest in the story -- Is "Digg" a fad that has passed, or is it that news links just don't get "dugg" anymore?

Anyway, passing along the data in case anyone's interested,

Elonka :)

This site will provide you with a DNS report for your domain. A very large percentage of domains have DNS problems; this site will help you find those problems and fix them.

Handy utility.

DNS Report

My Famous Unsolved Codes page got "Dugg" (again), resulting in massive traffic, from hundreds per day to many thousands per day, starting at about 1 p.m. on Sunday (traffic jumped from 40/hour, to 244/hour, to over 3000/hour).

My current "Diggs" score is 1124 (most other scores that day were in the single digits). This pushed my elonka.com site over the 1.5 million number in terms of total page views.

Total "elonka.com" traffic, according to sitemeter:

VISITS
   Total 687,705
   Average Per Day 2,780
   Average Visit Length 1:45
   Last Hour 268
   Today 4,391
   This Week 19,458

PAGE VIEWS

   Total 1,522,072
   Average Per Day 4,153
   Average Per Visit 1.5
   Last Hour 370
   Today 6,112
   This Week 29,069

The harmonics are interesting, though it's unclear on which site picked me up first.

Referring sites list, ranked by visits, of the last few thousand visitors:

2,264 digg.com 56.6%
468 reddit.com 11.7%
96 del.icio.us 2.4%
92 google.com 2.3%
83 elonka.com 2.1%
27 stumbleupon.com 0.7%
21 diggdot.us 0.5%
19 google.co.uk 0.5%
15 bloglines.com 0.4%
11 clan-senescence.com 0.3%
10 en.wikipedia.org 0.3%
9 images.google.com 0.2%
8 google.co.in 0.2%
8 mail.google.com 0.2%
8 pc-experts.org 0.2%
7 google.com.ph 0.2%
6 teoti.com 0.2%
5 digglicious.com 0.1%
5 google.ca 0.1%



At the AAAS conference over the weekend, there were some interesting numbers presented by academics who are studying internet usage, especially among teens (who are currently describing email as "something that you use to talk to old people"). I'd very much love to have some age demographic data on my website numbers, to learn how many of the visitors are from adult academics, and how many are teens who are following the latest "must go see the site that all my friends are looking at, so that I can say that I looked at it too...."

Famous Unsolved Codes and Ciphers (and digg.com)

This site will provide you with a DNS report for your domain. A very large percentage of domains have DNS problems; this site will help you find those problems and fix them. Also, the "Mail Test" tool will help find mail delivery problems for your domain. This site is a sister site to www.DNSstuff.com, which has many other DNS and networking tools.

Handy.

DNS Report

This week my elonka.com site tracker reached an interesting metric: Over 1 million page views, since I started with the sitemeter tracking service in September 2002.

Site Summary

VISITS

Total 441,488
Average Per Day 1,142
Average Visit Length 4:39
Last Hour 43
Today 318
This Week 7,996

PAGE VIEWS

Total 1,003,077
Average Per Day 2,955
Average Per Visit 2.6
Last Hour 108
Today 682
This Week 20,687

My observations on the source of the traffic:

The vast majority of visitors are researching the link between Kryptos and "The Da Vinci Code", so they're coming in on searches such as "King Tut and the CIA", "only WW knows", and other terms which I know are coming straight from the trivia quiz on Dan Brown's site.

The second-most common reason for visiting, seems to be my "Unsolved Codes" page. It's an erratic draw, with "surges" of traffic that come in as it gets picked up by different sections of the blogosphere every couple months, gets a flurry of links from people in that section of the net, and then the traffic dies down again after a few days.

Third-most common: General kryptos curiosity coming in from the search engines. Lots and lots of visits with a single search term: "kryptos"

I'm also getting some interesting side traffic coming in from the Brazilian search engines, since I posted a Portuguese translation page of my Saint Raphael information (for the benefit of some of my relatives in Brazil). So I'll get regular visits on that page from people searching on all kinds of bizarre combinations of search terms which happen to match unrelated words on the page: Top draws seem to be things that involve the words "Pope," "Poland", "tuberculosis", "exhumed", and "cemetery". Heh. Lots of morbid curiosity out there....

] Polish characters in HTML

My webpage about Saint Raphael is starting to get attention around the Carmelite community (I even found out that the Discalced Carmelite Order has a mailing list on Yahoogroups, heh). I have this image of barefoot friars alone in their cells, typing feverishly on an internet connection. Which may not be too far from the truth!

Anyway, I'm starting to get more information sent to me about Saint Raphael's life, which I'm going to add to my webpage. But the extra Polish characters are giving me conniptions, since I can't copy/paste them into vi (they just show up as a dot). I've been having some luck inserting the necessary & #xxx codes though...

Polish HTML codes