Ben Best's Blog

Traffic on my website seems to be declining
slightly. In 2008 there were 1,505,117 unique
sessions as opposed to 1,548,099 unique sessions
in 2007, 1,491,845 in 2006, and 1,252,175 in 2005.
Pageviews were 2,127,350 in 2008 as opposed to
2,137,172 pageviews in 2007, 2,197,133
in 2006 and 1,668,890 in 2005. In seeming
contraction to these stats, according
to the traffic rankings at

ALEXA.COM on December 31, 2008 the
3-month average world-wide ranking for

BENBEST.COM
was 170,071, which was more than three times as high as

Alcor Life Extension Foundation (565,401) and more
than six times as high as the

Cryonics Institute (1,116,857). My highest country ranking by Alexis.com
was in Sri Lanka, for some reason: 12,592 followed by the
Philippines: 42,097. My rankings in the United States,
Canada, China and the United Kingdom were 80,264, 101,348,
121,743 and 180,585 respectively. Overall, 45.8% of my
traffic came from the United States and 9.8% came from China

Below are some tables that summarize comparative
statistics for my website in the last few of years.
All of the data may be understated because I have heard
that some ISPs like AOL do caching of websites, so I would
not record many AOL hits (actually I never see AOL as a
source in my statistics).

Here are my comparisons of the PageViews I got in December
2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008 for some of my favorite pages (you have
to look WAY DOWN in this silly Blogger):

December PageViews Webpage 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 The History of Christmas 20,179 44,446 39,842 27,477 15,642 Mechanisms of Aging 1,850 4,105 6,392 7,873 3,603 Alcohol -- Health Benefit or Hazard? 1,142 2,943 2,829 2,408 2,002 Cryonics -- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) 670 973 1,311 1,105 1,520 Vitrification in Cryonics 511 772 1,110 959 1,133 Say's Law and Economic Growth 482 568 619 651 806 An Austrian Theory of Business Cycles 329 471 634 651 1,245 Schemers in the Web 243 416 767 462 506

The decline of many of my long established pages is offset
by the rise of other pages.
Causes of Death at 13,346 in 2008 has been a very popular staple on
my website for a long time.

Brain Neurotransmitters at 10,527,

Diffusion and Perfusion in Cryonics Protocol at 4,092 and

Cancer Death at 3,714 were very popular in 2008.

As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, the most popular page on my website year-round is generallyCauses of Death. The second most popular page on my website is usually
Death by Murder (although Brain Neurotransmitters sometimes is second). But I have noticed that during the period between Christmas and early January, Death by Murder will be the most popular page. My speculation about why this happens is that people browsing the web during that period are mostly looking for entertainment, whereas during the rest of the year there are more people doing research.

The search phrases now distinguish between "history of christmas" (1,805) and
"the history of christmas" (1,709) which may have affected the "history of
christmas" statistic. A couple of other popular terms/phrases in 2008
were "glutamate" (1,162) and "amygdala function" (374).

Monthly Sessions (thousands) month 2005 2006 2007 2008 January 88 125 130 124 February 98 125 129 135 March 116 148 139 140 April 114 136 147 148 May 114 126 133 137 June 69 98 114 119 July 66 92 106 100 August 75 92 101 88 September 97 114 117 119 October 128 145 143 137 November 140 148 149 134 December 147 143 139 124

December PageViews by Search Phrase phrase 2005 2006 2007 2008 history of christmas 6,164 7,954 2,442 1,805 melatonin 69 80 1,532 136 neurotransmitters 1,024 823 468 1,319 christmas history 1,134 747 494 548 causes of death 222 565 805 956 cryonics 92 119 153 131 obsessive love 75 15 100 16 vitrification 62 70 46 80 deprenyl 68 73 87 46 lipoic acid 96 300 115 102 diogenes 621 275 136 131 dha 42 186 247 213 essential fatty acids 124 90 77 107 say's law 115 86 65 126 n-acetylcysteine 201 81 293 507

There may have been some growth in visitors to my website in 2007:
1,548,099 unique sessions in 2007 as opposed to 1,491,845
unique sessions in 2006 and 1,252,175 in 2005. Pageviews
were 2,137,172 in 2007 as opposed to 2,197,133 pageviews
in 2006 and 1,668,890 in 2005. According
to the traffic rankings at

ALEXA.COM on December 31, 2007 the
3-month average world-wide ranking for

BENBEST.COM
was 240,723, which was more than twice as high as

Alcor Life Extension Foundation (498,520) and about
four times as high as the

Cryonics Institute (962,108). That is far below

Wikipedia (rank 8 on the same date), but still pretty
impressive. I actually think that Wikipedia is responsible
for much of the erosion of my popularity growth. To a lesser
extent, the lack of professional looking quality (due to my
handwritten HTML) is another factor cutting into my popularity.
My ranking on the "History of Christmas" search in Google
has dropped from near the top of the first
page to near the bottom of the first page. Nonetheless,
I got a plug on December 21 from WhatReallyHappened.com
that gave my Christmas page 2,398 hits, probably the
most hits any page on my website has ever experienced
in a single day. My highest country ranking by Alexis.com
was in Jamaica, for some reason: 13,911 followed by the
Philippines: 31,344. My rankngs in the United States and
Canada and Germany were 112,124 and 180,113 and 480,891,
respectively.

Below are some tables that summarize comparative
statistics for my website in the last couple of years.
I have just discontinued my use of Superstats in favor
of Urchin as a source of data because Superstats is so
expensive and does not really give me much additional
information other than comparison of past months and
years -- and I have reason to believe the data is suspect.
All of the data may be understated because I have heard
that some ISPs like AOL do caching of websites, so I would
not record many AOL hits (actually I never see AOL as a
source in my statistics).

Here are my comparisons of the PageViews I got in December
2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 for some of my favorite pages (you have
to look WAY DOWN in this silly Blogger):

December PageViews Webpage 2004 2005 2006 2007 The History of Christmas 20,179 44,446 39,842 27,477 Mechanisms of Aging 1,850 4,105 6,392 7,873 Alcohol -- Health Benefit or Hazard? 1,142 2,943 2,829 2,408 Cryonics -- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) 670 973 1,311 1,105 Vitrification in Cryonics 511 772 1,110 959 Say's Law and Economic Growth 482 568 619 651 An Austrian Theory of Business Cycles 329 471 634 651 Schemers in the Web 243 416 767 462

Monthly Sessions (thousands) month 2005 2006 2007 January 88 125 130 February 98 125 129 March 116 148 139 April 114 136 147 May 114 126 133 June 69 98 114 July 66 92 106 August 75 92 101 September 97 114 117 October 128 145 143 November 140 148 149 December 147 143 139

December PageViews by Search Phrase phrase 2005 2006 2007 history of christmas 6,164 7,954 2,442 melatonin 69 80 1,532 neurotransmitters 1,024 823 468 christmas history 1,134 747 494 causes of death 222 565 805 cryonics 92 119 153 obsessive love 75 15 100 vitrification 62 70 46 lying 14 0 58 deprenyl 68 73 87 lipoic acid 96 300 115 ubiquinol 11 290 45 diogenes 621 275 136 dha 42 186 247 history christmas 124 180 68 monetary system 20 79 28 best homepage 82 95 105 essential fatty acids 124 90 77 say's law 115 86 65 n-acetylcysteine 201 81 293 fixed income securities 125 50 33 ischemia reperfusion 14 20 29

I have become increasingly disinterested in the statistics on
my website, possibly because growth does not seem as great as
it once was. Nonetheless, there does seem to be growth and my
interest in my website statistics is still great enough to
be called an obsession.

There was growth in popularity of my website in 2006: 1,491,845
unique sessions in 2006 as opposed to 1,252,175 in 2005. Pageviews
were 2,197,133 in 2006 as opposed to 1,668,890 in 2005. According
to the traffic rankings at

ALEXA.COM on December 31, 2006 the
3-month average ranking for

BENBEST.COM
was 205,547, which was more than twice as high as

Alcor Life Extension Foundation (453,805) and more than
four times as high as the

Cryonics Institute (969,367). That is far below

Wikipedia (rank 13 on the same date), but still pretty
impressive. Even more amazing, my one-week average rank on
December 31, 2006 was 139,480. I think it would be cool to be in
the top 100,000, but I am expecting my ranking to drop in
January. The last week of the year is one of the slowest for
internet use (comparable to July and August) and I think that
I am still benefiting from the extreme popularity of my

The History of Christmas page, which swamps all of my
other pages in popularity during December (and to a lesser
extent in November), but not during the rest of the year.

Below are some tables that summarize comparative
statistics for my website in the last couple of years.
I have just discontinued my use of Superstats in favor
of Urchin as a source of data because Superstats is so
expensive and does not really give me much additional
information other than comparison of past months and
years -- and I have reason to believe the data is suspect.
All of the data may be understated because I have heard
that some ISPs like AOL do caching of websites, so I would
not record many AOL hits (actually I never see AOL as a
source in my statistics).

Here are my comparisons of the PageViews I got in December
2004, 2005 and 2006 for some of my favorite pages (you have
to look WAY DOWN in this silly Blogger):

December PageViews Webpage 2004 2005 2006 The History of Christmas 20,179 44,446 39,842 Mechanisms of Aging 1,850 4,105 6,392 Alcohol -- Health Benefit or Hazard? 1,142 2,943 2,829 Cryonics -- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) 670 973 1,311 Vitrification in Cryonics 511 772 1,110 Say's Law and Economic Growth 482 568 619 An Austrian Theory of Business Cycles 329 471 634 Schemers in the Web 243 416 767

Monthly Sessions (thousands) month 2005 2006 January 88 125 February 98 125 March 116 148 April 114 136 May 114 126 June 69 98 July 66 92 August 75 92 September 97 114 October 128 145 November 140 148 December 147 143

December PageViews by Search Phrase phrase 2005 2006 history of christmas 6,164 7,954 neurotransmitters 1,024 823 christmas history 1,134 747 causes of death 222 565 lipoic acid 96 300 ubiquinol 11 290 diogenes 621 275 dha 42 186 history christmas 124 180 cryonics 92 119 arachidonic acid 87 106 best homepage 82 95 murder rates 71 91 essential fatty acids 124 90 say's law 115 86 n-acetylcysteine 201 81 fixed income securities 125 50 ischemia 115 41

My predictions about Spring traffic for my website in my posting on the first week of January 2006 were excessive. This year Spring growth of my website traffic was less dramatic than it has been in former years. Traffic was somewhat level from late March to the first week of May, just below 35,000 per week. Typically, site traffic declines after May and is fairly tepid until September -- clearly a refection of the impact of the Northern Hemisphere school year.

During this Spring I have added more "interactive" content to my website, notably the Playground of Computer Programs and Life Extension Values Clarification Survey and Results. I highly recommend the latter.

Despite my former claim of withdrawal, I made substantial revisions in an attempt to create a clear expression of fact on the Life Extension page (particularly on the subject of cryonics) that would be less open to challenge. Others have participated in revisions to some extent. I now feel more at peace with the current version of the
Wikipedia Life extension page. I can live with some fighting and compromise, but I do have my limits. At the moment, at least, there is some compromise and no fighting, and I feel that the page is conveying a fairly accurate overview of life extension. And I am hopeful that I can help maintain this situation.

Typically the last week of December and the first week of January represent deep dips for the number of sessions visiting my website -- comparable to the lows of the summers. After peaking at around 13,000 PageViews per week in January, PageViews
for my www.benbest.com/history/xmas.html page dropped in the first week of January to 1,768. Even without the otherwise slowness of this period that would represent a significant drop. Of course most schools are not in session during the last week of December and the first week of January in Christian-associated countries. Nonetheless, the "bottom line" figure for the first week of January was 24,169 sessions. That compares very favorably with the peaks of last Spring, which were around 27,000. Typically the weekly number of sessions climbs from the first week of January to a week sometime between late March and early May. So my prediction is that mid-Spring highs in 2006 will approach 50,000 per week.

I have done some more careful analysis of the meaning of session time. I have come to the conclusion that of the 24,169 sessions in the first week of January, approximately 20,000 of those sessions were for less than 10 seconds. About 500 would be for 3−10 minutes, another 500 would be for 10−30 minutes and about 150 would be for more than 30 minutes. Speaking personally, I would rather print a page than look at it on-line for more than 30 minutes. So I would guess that number of people actually looking at my website pages long enough to get meaningful information is in the area of 2,000 to 5,000 per week.

In the past I have paid much attention to the search terms leading to my website (because at least 75% of the PageViews come from search engines), but I am finding this matter less interesting now than previously. I used to be impressed that the search phase "neuron physiology" would return one of my web pages as the top site on all of the search engines. But the fact that I only get 5 PageViews per week for that search phrase indicates that it is not invoked very often. The search terms "neurotransmitters", "ischemia" and "vitrification" return 200, 48 and 13 PageViews per week (respectively) and I am on the first page of searches on those terms with Google, Yahoo and MSN search engines (but not top). I used to be top on all of the search engines for "vitrification", but now have been displaced by Wikipedia -- a bitter irony insofar as I wrote much of the text for the Wikipedia vitrification page.

(I have tried to format these tables nicely, but this Blogger is VERY unfriendly
to HTML, so it looks a mess. And a vast amount of space appears between the tables.)

I get statistics on my website
(www.benbest.com) from two independent sources: Superstats
and Urchin. I get slightly different kinds of information from both sources
(and there are sources of error on both sources), but where there is
agreement I believe that the data is reliable.

There were over a million unique sessions on my website in 2005 and
each session visited an average of one-and-a-half pages -- for a total
of about a million-and-a-half PageViews for 2005. I believe that the
average time spent on a page is between 3−4 minutes, but I also
believe that a very high proportion of PageViews is less than 30 seconds.
Just because a page is loaded does not mean it is being read. It may
stay loaded over lunch or dinner.

A table below shows how many thousands of sessions there were
on my website for the months of 2005. Another table below shows how
many PageViews I got as a result of some of the most common search
phrases on all the search engines giving me more than 100 hits
during December of 2005.
About three quarters of the hits I get on my website come from people
doing searches with search engines -- and the overwhelming majority
of these are combinations of words that produce fewer than 100 
PageViews per month. All of the data may be understated because I have heard
that some ISPs like AOL do caching of websites, so I would not record
many AOL hits (actually I never see AOL as a source in my statistics).

In December 2005 I had 44,000 hits on my

The History of Christmas page, more than a quarter
of all the PageViews on my entire website. I had approximately 175 pages
on my website in December 2005. The number of PageViews on the
Christmas page peaked at nearly 3,000 on December 20 and fell
precipitously thereafter (especially after December 25th). I typically
get less than 200 PageViews per month on the Christmas page during
the summer. Aside from December, November and January, the Christmas
page is not usually very high on my list of pages. During the
beginning of December 2005 I was getting over 40,000 sessions
per week, with nearly 100 pages on my website getting at least
100 weekly PageViews. (Saturday is always the slowest day, whereas
the busiest could be Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.)

Aside from the Christmas page, my

Death by Murder,

Brain Neurotransmitters
and

Causes of Death webpages get the most hits, but
these are not among my own favorites. I pay most careful attention
to the number of PageViews and the numerical trends in PageViews
of my favorite pages. Pages become my favorites on the basis of
how much work I put into them, on the basis of how pleased I am
with the content and on the basis of how much I would
like them to make an impact on the minds of other people.
Here are my SuperStats comparisons of the
PageViews I got in December 2004 and December 2005 for
some of my favorite pages (you have to look WAY DOWN in this silly Blogger):

December PageViews Webpage 2004 2005 Mechanisms of Aging 1,850 4,105 Alcohol -- Health Benefit or Hazard? 1,142 2,943 Cryonics -- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) 670 973 Vitrification in Cryonics 511 772 Say's Law and Economic Growth 482 568 An Austrian Theory of Business Cycles 329 471 Schemers in the Web 243 416 (Urchin)

Monthly Sessions month thousands January 88 February 99 March 116 April 114 May 114 June 69 July 66 August 75 September 96 October 128 November 140 December 147 2005 (Urchin)

PageViews by Search Phrase phrase PageViews history of Christmas 6,164 christmas history 1,134 neurotransmitters 1,024 diogenes 621 causes of death 222 n-acetylcysteine 201 serotonin 179 bavarian illuminati 159 fixed income securities 125 history christmas 124 essential fatty acids 124 eric fromm 120 ischemia 115 say's law 115 murder 103 December 2005 (Urchin)