Less People on OVF

[Ainsworth]

Wednesday night, 10.24pm, early-mid season, Vale doing well after a promotion year and only 29 people on the Port Vale Present Forum (12 members and 17 Visitors).......

 

I've been a huge fan of this site, not posting often but reading daily for 6 years.

 

The big question is after a good few months/years of negativity on here is OVF finally losing its appeal?

[marky mark]

Have you not seem the smurf v sentinel war thread?

 

That had all that interest in 2 days.

[Caz or caz123]

No, don't think so. The figures are up once again and you've said it all really, 10.24 on a Wednesday night. Call back on Saturday :D

 

I'm actually going to close this thread because we've just had pages and pages on a very similar theme and I think everyone made plain their thoughts on that thread.

[Fosse69]

Have you not seem the smurf v sentinel war thread?

 

That had all that interest in 2 days.

A one man gang that bored to death most people, know who is in the gang?

[robf]

Wednesday night, 10.24pm, early-mid season, Vale doing well after a promotion year and only 29 people on the Port Vale Present Forum (12 members and 17 Visitors).......

 

I've been a huge fan of this site, not posting often but reading daily for 6 years.

 

The big question is after a good few months/years of negativity on here is OVF finally losing its appeal?

 

Ah but you are reading the "people online" display as being the same! I altered it a few weeks ago.

 

It used to simply show everyone that had been online within 90 minutes.

 

Now, it shows too things:

 

1. The people online at that very moment (which would be 29) to the nearest 30 seconds

2. Plus below it is the people online within 60 minutes (i.e. a figure less than the old 90 mins figure) which can run into hundreds

 

So, considering that our highest ever recorded figure (on the old "in the last 90 mins" system) was 900-odd and right now, on a drizzly Thursday morning we are showing 463 in the last hour then actually our forum figures are increasing (hence my reply to Matt Holl on another thread)

 

Furthermore, I have Google Analytics installed and have had it for 3/4 years. Looking at users who visit the forum then the figures are up circa a third from the numbers 2/3 years ago. I find it interesting that now we have 2/3 using desktop machines and 1/3 use tablets or mobiles.

 

I don't normally do this, but damn it I want to put this to bed once and for all so here are the last two month's Google (i.e. their figures not mine) stats on the site:

 

October:

Individual visitors: 122,000

Pages viewed: 861,000

Ave visit duration: 7 mins 21 secs

Ave pages per visit: 6.66

 

September:

Individual visitors: 124,000

Pages viewed: 807,000

Ave visit duration: 7 mins 46 secs

Ave pages per visit: 6.51

 

Those stats are for the whole site not just the forum. Is that a site in decline? A site that attracts in excess of 120,000 individual visits? That has the same stats this month as the last month? I just don't think so *

 

* those stats also show why OVF is so expensive and why it does struggle during really busy times!

 

As for how many registered users, the forum admin interface shows users on OVF and it shows consistently a figure of between 6-800 users coming on each day in October. When I take it back to the same period in 2010 it shows 4-500 users each day.

 

I would also conclude from that that we are getting just under a 1,000 Vale fans a day (that 800 figure is just for the forum and some fans come on the site and don't go on the forum). Taking on board that it's not necessarily the same people on every day so it's not always the same 1,000 people, I would say it is fair enough that OVF probably gets viewed by between 1-2,000 Vale fans or around a third to possibly a half of the regular fanbase. That's not taking into account the 2,000 plus Twitter followers, people who read the Facebook page, people who get an email newsletter from us etc...

 

So, while we shouldn't over-estimate ourselves as being bigger than we are and appealing to every Vale fan but neither should a site that does mean something to a significant number of the fanbase be underestimated either. Similarly, a site of this size/influence just simply ain't gonna appeal to every one all the time. We appreciate some don't like us and in fact we don't mind competition at all if they want to go elsewhere and/or set up their own site. We only want to see Vale fans have a place to have their say/ help the club by representing the fans' views - so whether that's through OVF or other fans sites, we really don't mind. Each to their own.

 

It's simply that after 16 years plus hard work (and believe me, in 10 years, I have barely taken more than 3/4 days off from working on OVF each year ) I am not going away, I am not going to change my views (which are singularly to do what I think is best for the club) and it's your choice to use this site or not.

 

If you don't like it, fine - but others do, so let them (whether you think the number is declining, increasing or staying the same) enjoy it please.

 

p.s. Ainsworth, that wasn't aimed at you by the way. Thanks for your kind comments on being a "huge fan" - it's nice to get the odd, occasional bit of praise among all the brickbats from others.