Statistics for site visitors to the Great Baddow Online website

(last updated 2 January 2009)

This information is derived from the Google Analytics package which enables data collection on visits to individual pages within a site by the simple device of embedding a javascript link at the end of each html page. Some caution needs to be exercised about the precise meaning and implications of the data, because only permanent pages are tagged for monitoring, and in general news items which usually expire and are no longer visible after one month, and events which expire at the end of the corresponding day are not routinely monitored. 

For those pages which are tagged, the data provides a useful analysis of  the numbers of unique visitors, the frequency of visits, and the most popular pages.

In addition to page and visit monitoring, we are also able to analyse the browser used; Internet Explorer remains the most popular browser, but use of Firefox is averaging about 15% (1 in 6) users, and we think think this is likely to increase in future.

The most common operating system is Windows with Mac and Linux users averaging about 3% of users.   However, it is interesting to monitor the individual versions of Windows, and note that Vista introducd early in 2007 now accounts for about 10% of Windows versions in use for browsing.

The data tables

A summary table is presented first for visitor and page numbers followed by separate tabulated data for each quarter or month.  Any comments on the data will be appreciated and feedback may be sent to the site manager. Note the significant increase and doubling of unique visitors for 2008 compared to 2007, and corresponding increase in visits. However the average number of page views at 2.46 for 2008 is slightly down over the previous year.

Most popular pages

Statistical data collection was first introduced in September 2006 and for 6 months we only monitored  views of the home page. From March 2007, we started wider coverage of key pages, particularly those provided as part of the overall navigational structure.  Hence the lists below show the most popular pages in the site (of those monitored).  The business index and monthly diary of events (What's on when) are the most popular pages after the home page in 2008.

Popularity of browsers

As expected Internet Explorer is the most popular browser followed by Firefox which by end of 2008 was in use by nearly 17% of browsers.  Chrome is just entering the mrket and Mozilla and SafairSafari, Netscape and Mozilla remain in minority use, and 3 other browsers (Gzip, HP and Konqueror) made  appearances during the year.   Gzip is a file compression utility but can be used to request content from a server. Konqueror provides file management as well as a tabbed browser.  The HP appeared to be associated with a pocket PDA computer.

The continued majority use of Windows (averaging around 95% of activity) reflects the continued dominance of Microsoft in the marketplace. However, since the introduction of Vista, this operating system version has signicantly increased its overall popularity; althpugh remaining second to XP, it has increased it spercentage from 12.42 - 20.52% over the course of 2008. 

* Windows - The percentages given for the various Windows operating systems correspond to the pecentage of views for all types of Windows o/s. Hence the reason for the sub total percentage for Windows totalling 100%. The sub total of the number of Windows views is then recalculated as a percentage of the overall number of views.