Wednesday 18 June 2008

Counting Numbers to Keep People Interested

You mentioned counting downloads a few days ago. I think this is a very good way of making people come back. I'd consider showing a number of top lists - on different pages, e.g.

On the front page - top 20 downloads this day or week.

On category pages - top 10 or 20 in the category.

On programs - the number this week, number last week. Is it popular, isn't it popular ...

and so on...

Maybe it's me but I love keeping an eye on download stats.

by ML

7 comments:

  1. I agree.

    However, I'm concerned about making the site look small.

    I did count downloads at one point, expecting the sort of downloads to match those of bigger sites. However there was so few downloads that the stats were really odd and far ranging.

    I guess this applies to my idea of having recent searches and dynamic content based on previous user activity.

    Maybe need to rethink?

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  2. I understand - just put top 10 (or so) lists then and don't show numbers of downloads.

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  3. So what data should I store?

    Date-time
    IP address
    which page it came from
    Program ID

    Anything else?

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  4. Can't think of anything else. This list should do it.

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  5. Can't see any changes on the pages. Is it a behind the scenes change?

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  6. Well yes, there wouldn't be many stats to see for some time.
    But its logging stuff now.

    ReplyDelete