20,000,000 Visits
We surpassed 20 million visits on SiteMeter today.
I try to note such milestones, but I neglected to note when we passed 30,000,000 page views. (A page view is every hit on the site; a “visit” is “a series of page views by one person with no more than 30 minutes in between page views.”) It appears that happened sometime in April.
We had over a million page views over the two-month period of May and June; in fact, I had my first bill for an overage at Rackspace, because I exceeded my monthly bandwidth. (That’s a good problem to have.)
It took over 6 1/2 years to get the first ten million visits, and less than three years to get the second ten million. Progress!
Anyway, as always, thanks for reading.
Congratulations!
DRJ (a83b8b) — 7/12/2012 @ 9:32 pmDog Trainer YiR – 9M
Greenwald sockpuppet – 6M
Hiltzik sockpuppet – 2M
all others – 3M
Seriously, though … Congratulations!
aunursa (7014a8) — 7/12/2012 @ 9:34 pmIt took over 6 1/2 years to get the first ten million visits, and less than three years to get the second ten million.
aunursa (7014a8) — 7/12/2012 @ 9:46 pmThe collective follies of Spointer, Alex/Ryan, Mawy, Tye and all probably had some effect on that.
Gazzer (205a11) — 7/12/2012 @ 9:53 pmWell done Mr P.
At this rate, you’ll reach 30 million right about the time that Obama begins promoting the “Say, Can You Spot Me a Couple of Bucks Until Payday? Budget Act of 2014.”
JVW (edec8d) — 7/12/2012 @ 9:55 pmCongrats Patterico
Just sayin' (06d884) — 7/12/2012 @ 10:01 pmCongratulations!
That crazy Koch blog money should really be flowing now,
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 7/12/2012 @ 10:03 pmThat’s a lot, right?
Dustin (73fead) — 7/12/2012 @ 10:09 pmNice job Patterico!
Noodles (3681c4) — 7/12/2012 @ 10:34 pm“A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him.”
Dustin (73fead) — 7/12/2012 @ 10:39 pmCongrats on the milestone.
Sarahw (b0e533) — 7/12/2012 @ 11:52 pmOr milebrick.
Sarahw (b0e533) — 7/12/2012 @ 11:55 pmWat to go on all the hits.
mg (44de53) — 7/13/2012 @ 3:18 amOff topic – Would Star Parker be a better v.p. than Condi bush Rice?
Keep the heat on and here’s to 20 mo’.
gary gulrud (dd7d4e) — 7/13/2012 @ 3:34 amWell, add another hit to the pile. Congrats and well done, Patterico!
no one you know (1b481d) — 7/13/2012 @ 4:13 amAnd only 999,000 of those hits were check-ins by Chris Hooten to see if we were talking about him.
Icy (3615bd) — 7/13/2012 @ 6:34 ammg, in a word, ‘no’.
Icy (3615bd) — 7/13/2012 @ 6:35 amThis has always been a very eclectic crowd to mingle in. The range of subject matter in posts by both Patrick and the various guest bloggers over time has assured that. Have a great day everybody!
elissa (1fcacb) — 7/13/2012 @ 6:58 amAll 2 million of the Jews in Iran have hit this site
Icy (a49703) — 7/13/2012 @ 7:13 amAnd only half of them were me spamming your site!
Aaron "Worthing" Walker (23789b) — 7/13/2012 @ 10:07 amCongratulations, Mr. Patterico. It just goes to show what a little truth and sunshine can accomplish. Nice to see all those little cretins getting their knickers all in a snit over your writings.
However, I do miss those – what do you call it – Sock and Puppet Fridays? Well, best wishes for 20 million more slugs. Now, I’d better get out for my walk before Bess finds something for me to do.
Harry S. Truman (1a2353) — 7/13/2012 @ 11:10 amFelicitations and salutations!
Beldar (92f1db) — 7/14/2012 @ 1:42 amIt is fun to watch the circus. Thank you for the tent!
tye (f09274) — 7/14/2012 @ 6:54 amMark? Your skid is here.
Icy (b2418d) — 7/14/2012 @ 8:01 amIf 30 million page views is almost as much 20 million “visits” (if more than 30 minutes separate tow views from the same computer it counts as a separate visit) then there are about 2/3 as many visits as page views.
The number of page views should be somewhat above 30 million, and the number of visits somewhat less than 2/3 of the number of paghe views. You had over a million page views in May and June. Should we say 19/30. That would be 63.3%. 18.5/30 would be 61.66%
Let’s say 61.8034% = the golden ratio, is the ratio of visist to page views. It’s close enough.
Visits probably went on a sharp rise after May 25. I am wondering if the statistics for May and June are the same. You combined them.
The general rate of growth is such so that you hit 10 million page views sometime around midnight July 31, 2009 and 10 million visits on July 2, 2008.
They used to be more equal. Now you are getting more page views per visit.
If there are only 1 1/2 times as many page views as visits, that means a lot of people only view one page (or stay on it at least 30 minutes) That means either the main page, or they come to Patterico through a link.
But as time goes on, more and more people are looking at more than one page. More of the blog is read per visit. For the last 3 years or so,
(July 2009 to April 2012) it’s 20 million page views and 9 million visits. Not 62% but 45% or 2.2. and the ratio of page views to visits is probably getting higher.
This might indicate more looking at commments and commenting. (commenting can be measured) By the way, some people get RSS feeds, don’t they? How does that count?
A rising ratio of page views to visits could also indicate posts that link to previous posts but there probably used to be more of it.
And it could be related to faster Internet connections, because if connections are faster, people will click on the links.
Let’s do some moree calculations:
On July 2, 2008
https://patterico.com/2008/07/02/ten-million-page-views/
You wrote:
This blog had its 10 millionth hit today.
I have now received, in the entire five-year history of this blog, as many page views as Hot Air gets in a month.
Sweet.
If tis was an average this would indicate Hot Air gets 60 times the amount of traffic as Patterico. But you started out very small. Yiou are comparing the Patterico total to Hot Air as of 2008.
Right now Hot Air is the number 19 blog, according to Technorati.
.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 7/16/2012 @ 9:08 am^^^ It’s like watching “A Beautiful Mind” all over again! ^^^
Icy (de8c71) — 7/16/2012 @ 9:11 amI don’t understand the point of your comment, Sammy.
I agree that twelve times five is sixty, and that 20 million is two thirds of 30 million, though.
Dustin (73fead) — 7/16/2012 @ 9:13 amROFL, Icy.
SPQR (26be8b) — 7/16/2012 @ 9:14 amIf my calculations are correct, there were half as many comments when the tenth comment was posted as there were later, when the twentieth posted.
Dustin (73fead) — 7/16/2012 @ 9:14 amI smell euphemisms.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 7/16/2012 @ 9:53 amThere IS a certain level of fascination attending Sammy’s niggling, OCD-fueled dwelling on minutiae. His desire to discover the truth, the “what does this REALLY mean?” ethic is something to be lauded, i think. However — and this is a HUGE “however” — it can easily lead to (and in Finkelman’s case I would argue that it often leads to) a questing after hidden truths or alternate explanations that simply are not there. Once that “obsessive” part of the OCD kicks in, one can become pre-disposed to never believing the simplest most straightforward explanation for things. Hence, the playing of devil’s advocate for alternative explanations that nobody else is seriously considering. It can verge on borderline conspiracy theorizing: the improbable becomes probable merely because it is possible.
Icy (de8c71) — 7/16/2012 @ 9:57 amComment by Dustin — 7/16/2012 @ 9:13 am
I don’t understand the point of your comment, Sammy.
I didn’t get to the point, partly because I am not sure what this works out to, and if somethinbg is right.
But one thing is for sure, we can draw further conclusions and some of them should be interesting.
I agree that twelve times five is sixty, and that 20 million is two thirds of 30 million, though.
Thos enunbers need to be adjusted.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 7/16/2012 @ 10:24 amIcy – Russell Crowe won the Nobel Prize at the end of “A Beautiful Mind.” I don’t get the same vibe with Sammy.
daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 7/16/2012 @ 10:42 amIs that your point? That the numbers Patterico quoted are not precise? He was just thanking his readers for reading his blog. Relax.
Dustin (73fead) — 7/16/2012 @ 10:46 amComment by Dustin — 7/16/2012 @ 9:13 am
I agree that twelve times five is sixty, and that 20 million is two thirds of 30 million, though.
The number 60 comes form comparing the number of page views Hot Air had per month in the middle of 2008 to the total number of page viewss Otterico had since the beginning. Since Patterico was growing, it had to be less. A better estimate might be 20.
Also the ratio of visits to page views is not 2/3 now but 45% or less – even less because 45% comes from a calculation based on the July 2009-May 2012 period, and the trend should be accelerating.
The number of visits now per month at Patterico is around 10,000. There were “over a million” page views in May and June. That is 61 days, but since it is “over” a million, we can divide by 60 and we’ll still get a number too low. We get 16,666. As the number of page views is now more than double the number of visits, let’s divide by 2.2 and we get 8,333. That is approximately 10,000.
Now we can check. If Hot Air has 20 times the number of visits than Patterico, that should put it at around 180,000 a day.
Now on Dec 12, 2008
https://patterico.com/2008/12/02/hotaircom-had-almost-13-the-traffic-of-the-la-timess-entire-web-site-in-october/
Patterico wrote that Hot air had 23,713,333 poage views in October 2008 – so 764,964 a day.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 7/16/2012 @ 11:00 amSammy,
You might be interested in this explanation by OpenTracker of page views, hits and visitors. For comparison, here is the similar but shorter explanation at SiteMeter. Basically, I’m not sure you can make the mathematical comparisons you are trying to make.
In addition, it may have no bearing on your inquiry but I wonder if the fact that Patterico changed internet hosts a year or so ago — which caused many of the old links to stop working — made any difference.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 7/16/2012 @ 11:21 amSo we should say Hot air had approximately 750,000 page view a month in the summer of 2008, ans in any case about 20 million a month.
But in July Patterico said Hot Air had 10 million a month!
Was Hot Air growing that fast so that the number of page views per month at Hot Air doubled between July and December, 2008?? Or are the estimates wrong?
There could also be a greater than 6 months difference in time betweenb the different estimates. The July 2008 might actuaklly be an old figure.
Still, this is only a difference of a factor of 2.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 7/16/2012 @ 11:25 amComment by DRJ — 7/16/2012 @ 11:21 am
In addition, it may have no bearing on your inquiry but I wonder if the fact that Patterico changed internet hosts a year or so ago — which caused many of the old links to stop working — made any difference.
Google returns valid links. Internal Patterico links work as well.
This July 31, 2009 page
https://patterico.com/2009/07/31/10000000-visits/
Has a link to this July 2, 2008 page:
https://patterico.com/2008/07/02/ten-million-page-views/
And it works.
So, what, if anything does not work? Old Breitbart.com links don’t work.
This may have had no effect, because the URLs didn’t change.
If it had had an effect, Patterico would have lost some possible visits from old links.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 7/16/2012 @ 11:29 amHot Air could very well be growing that fast, Sammy. After all, it only started in 2006 and according to Wikipedia it grew significantly between 2007 and 2010:
DRJ (a83b8b) — 7/16/2012 @ 11:30 amThe links don’t all work, especially links from other websites before the move.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 7/16/2012 @ 11:31 amFor instance, try the first link at this post by Dafydd at Big Lizards. I suspect there are hundreds or even thousands of these, given how frequently Patterico has been linked through the years.
DRJ (a83b8b) — 7/16/2012 @ 11:34 amBrietbart.com changed the URLs but I don’t think Patterico did. So long as the URLs remain the same, the links won’t be broken. Changing hosts doesn’t change URLs.
It’s still https://patterico.com and so on.
Nothing at Patterico has been renamed.
Broken URLs are a problem on Wikipedia. Wikipedia tells people writing articles on Wikipedia to use full names of URLs, so that broken links can be fixed.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 7/16/2012 @ 11:47 amNow Site Meter:
http://support.sitemeter.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbarticleid=2
This tells me absolutely nothing more than what Patterico said in the beginning, except it makes clear that a page view may consistor more than one “hit”
A single page could easily generate a dozen or more hits.
Open Tracker says:
http://www.opentracker.net/article/hits-or-pageviews
For example, if you have a page with 10 pictures, then a request to a server to view that page generates 11 hits (10 for the pictures, and one for the html file). A page view can contain hundreds of hits. This is the reason that we measure page views and not hits.
So maybe at one point they measured “hits” but this is generally not done any more. “Hits” inflates the number, and maybe inflates it more over time, as pages get more elaborate.
And here’s even more. (there are two ways of counting hits)
http://www.opentracker.net/article/definition-differences-between-hit-page-and-web-counters
Now we have to watch the words very carefully (or understand them at the beginning)
Now on 12/2/2008 the post is giving “page views” (citing Site Meter) not “hits” so that’s not the explanation of why Patterico seems to be giving a figure double what he gave that July. Patterico (in Dec. 2008) seems to think the October figures were high because of the Presidential election (he says they might have dropped since)
I’m not sure that would throw it up too much. People might be more interested in finding out news, but not necesssarily more interested in using the Internet.
Hot Air had 31.58% of the traffic that all of latimes.com had. Except that for the LA Times he has Nielsen not Site Meter. That’s not nitpicking. They may not be scaled the same.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 7/16/2012 @ 11:48 amComment by DRJ — 7/16/2012 @ 11:34 am
For instance, try the first link at this post by Dafydd at Big Lizards. I suspect there are hundreds or even thousands of these, given how frequently Patterico has been linked through the years.
Oh, yes that doesn’t work. And that does remind me, I have seen Patterico 404 lkinks before.
So this link:
https://patterico.com/2005/09/17/3591/the-prediction-stands-dems-will-filibuster-bushs-second-nominee/
from http://biglizards.net/blog/archives/2005/09/the_patterico_g.html
dated September 17, 2005
The Patterico Gambit
Patterico just put up a nice post….
doesn’t work.
To work, the link has to be:
https://patterico.com/2005/09/17/the-prediction-stands-dems-will-filibuster-bushs-second-nominee/
instead of:
https://patterico.com/2005/09/17/3591/the-prediction-stands-dems-will-filibuster-bushs-second-nominee
It’s that 3591 that’s causing the trouble. zso we know now (although non-regular uses could never be expecvvted to know) just get rid of thar number after the date, and it will work.
But it’s not the fact that Patterico changed internet hosts a year or so ago that caused the problem (or at lest that’s not the main problem)
This relates to an earlier change, although maybe the old host redirected the earliest links.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 7/16/2012 @ 11:56 amManually stripping the 3591 fixes the problem.
Sammy Finkelman (d22d64) — 7/16/2012 @ 11:57 amcongrats on the milestone. its because you say things worth reading and thinking about, and not just parroting others’ thoughts.
milowent (009b1e) — 7/16/2012 @ 1:07 pm