This site is now averaging well over 1000 visitors per day. That is genuine unique visitors, not hits, not reloads.

I have verified this using both Extreme Tracking and Google Analytics.
eXTReMe Tracking - Science - Politics

Obviously more needs to be done to turn so many guests into contributing members! :-)
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What is defined as 'unique'? What is a reload?

Have there really been 1271286 individuals in 1227 days, or is that the same 1000 over and over again?
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Removed. I was talking rubbish.
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Originally Posted by Aardvark:
What is defined as 'unique'? What is a reload?

Have there really been 1271286 individuals in 1227 days, or is that the same 1000 over and over again?

Uniques are unique IP addresses on a per day basis I suppose (so if someone visits every day they get counted as a new unique every day).

This is more reliable than it used to be because far more people are on broadband now. People on dial up get a new IP address every time, but those on AOL share IP addresses between them.
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Originally Posted by Anthony Butcher:
This is more reliable than it used to be because far more people are on broadband now. People on dial up get a new IP address every time, but those on AOL share IP addresses between them.

I wouldn't go to strict with that meter Ant. Surely most of the broadband in the UK is on dynamic IPs? Quite a few dial-ups are on static too.
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Forums are excellent ways to campaign, but the trick is, is to consider the reader. What does the reader want and I always think it is good to make posts which are educational sometimes, or to start threads investigating things, as I'm always aware there are lots more people browsing than with actual accounts. One forum I go on you can look at it on an average evening and it will have over 100 people viewing each major subsection at any one time. Taken over a time scale of a few years that must be reaching out to millions. Also there is a quantity/quality situation. The more the quality goes up the more the quantity goes down, but the people who do read are often far more influential. Once a thread becomes a hot topic it can take on a life all of its own and one I did recently clocked up 95 pages and ranks at the top of the Google index when querying some very general phrases and words. So don't underestimate the power of the Internet, some people's bloggs have been known to have millions of readers. It's all down to what you say though.
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Wow, that is good news!! :-)
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Congratulations on the number of unique daily hits! I have to admit that I was wondering how many visitors the forum had, and I also have to confess that I thought it might be much less.
It's encouraging for the posters to know that so many people might be looking at their posts.
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Originally Posted by bornfree:
It's encouraging for the posters to know that so many people might be looking at their posts.

You'd probably be scared stiff if you knew who was looking at them!
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Oh no! Surely you don't mean that government snoops read these posts? Oh no, I'm compromised!
Seriously, I'm perfectly aware of this. In fact on my web site I'm seriously considering posting a special message for the snoops, something along the lines of `the issues that concern me should also concern you.'
In any case, my profile on the forum is linked to my web site, and all they have to do is check the `Whois' database for the site. It reveals my (real) name, address, 'phone number etc.
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