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Visitor and article statistics
An insight into this website
During August 2008 - August 2009 (56 weeks) this website received more than 10,000 visitors from a total of 100 countries, an average of 180 visitors/week. During January - July 2010 (30 weeks) it received 9360 visitors from a total of 133 counties, an average of 310 visitors per week or nearly twice the average of a year earlier. The top six countries were Australia 34%, USA 31%, UK 8%, Canada 6%, India 3%, and New Zealand 2%, much the same as a year earlier. About 8% came directly, 83% via a search engine, and 9% via referring sites, again much the same as a year earlier. About 10% of visitors came more than once. The years so far show similar variations -- a second third lower than the first, and a drop in December. The correlation between 2008 and 2009 is r = 0.56.
In January 2010 there were 65 articles whose length and readabilty were as shown above.
The most common article length is 1000-1500 words, which takes 4-6 minutes to read at the average student reading speed of 250 words per minute. The most common reading difficulty is 8-9 as measured by Gunning's Fog Index (Gunning R The Technique of Clear Writing McGraw-Hill 1952 pages 34-39). The index is roughly equal to the grade level required for 90% comprehension. For comparison 6 is required for comics, 9 for Reader's Digest, and 14 for encyclopedias. On this website no article reaches 12, which is the average reading comprehension level of 17-year-olds. To read all 65 articles takes nearly eight hours. Just over half have one or more graphics.
Top thirty articles
During the 30 weeks January 2010 through July 2010, 12500 pages were
viewed. The number of hits, and average time-on-screen in minutes, for
the top thirty articles were as follows.
Hits Time Title
1738 8.01 Divining for Water. Field tests around world
1131 5.02 Planting by the Moon. Views of a professional gardener
933 4.81 Oxygen is Good. Oxygen-based medical scams
489 4.16 Message in a Bottle. Spoiling a good story with facts
476 3.03 Contact and Meeting Details. For WA Skeptics
471 4.38 Enough to Make a Statue Weep
388 4.75 Divining for Brass and Gold. A 1980 Perth test
322 4.23 Crash Course in Critical Thinking
304 4.16 Chocolate is Good for You
279 6.20 How to Write Your Entry. Step-by-step classroom guide
209 5.04 Mythbuster TV Classics. Entertainment vs science
204 5.60 Chariots Old Hat in New Age. Von Daniken self-destructs
197 3.72 I Can Smell Onions. Psychics useless in Search & Rescue
197 9.13 Seeking HMAS Sydney. Weird beliefs delayed discovery
194 2.33 Critical Thinking in the Classroom. Views on the Awards
150 4.23 Common Crooked Arguments. And how to deal with them
148 6.01 Astrology my Passion my Life. A tragic true story
147 1.38 Cereal Killers. A look at corn circles
145 1.60 History of WA Skeptics. Highlights 1980-1995
144 5.13 Contacting the Dead. Tricks of the trade
129 2.12 Paranormal Beliefs of Trainee Teachers
127 1.27 Skeptics in the Pub. A new Perth group
122 5.20 IPCC's Abuse of Scientific Process
111 14.07 Kinetic Energy. The impossibility of alien spaceships
101 2.77 Has Wine a Magnetic Personality? Our tests say no
98 4.37 Karma Dharma Pudding and Pie. Short poems for skeptics
97 2.26 Before WA Skeptics Began. A 1980 group in Perth
97 2.88 A Day at the Psychic Fair. True beliefs at high costs
93 3.66 Scourge of the Godmen. Fighting deception in India
92 2.57 Undeceiving Ourselves. Why our thinking goes astray
During the period August 2008 - August 2009 there was almost no correlation
between hits and time
(r = 0.13, p = 0.30). The same was true of the period January 2010
-July 2010 (r = 0.22, p = 0.07),
probably because serious readers tend to download a wanted article
rather than read it on screen.
Any suggestions?
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undeceivingourselves DOT com
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