Craic'ing On - Another Record Year

By The Eds
December 20 2006

As we prepare to ring out the old and welcome the new your site continues to thrive. The year 2006 was by some way another record one for The Craic.

By the end of this year we will have recorded some 6.46 million hits, 46.6% higher than 2005 which itself was a record year.

‘Hits’ are generated any time someone clicks on a new page or link on the site or refreshes an existing one. It should be noted that taken on their own they are a pretty meaningless statistic. Where they do have relevance however, as per the graph below, is in like for like comparison.

There are a number of factors behind the significant growth we have seen in the last two years. The greater use of broadband in the domestic market is arguably the single most important one. Put simply, if it takes less time to view another screen or to refresh an existing one people will do so more.

The tragic death of Jack Wakefield in June was most certainly a factor. In May 2006 we recorded 896k hits, by some way a record. The highest prior to that had been January 2006 with 612k. Whilst we do not know for sure it is pretty likely that it would have been a record month anyway. The level of activity on this site is often related to what is happening in and around the club. In May last season we were rounding off our best ever league season of the professional era and looking forward to our first European final.

We witnessed a significant surge in figures from the second quarter of 2005 through to the second quarter of 2006. Since then, whilst the numbers are still up, the growth has slowed. Q4 of 2006 will end up some 7% up on the same period last year. Given the particular events last season both on and off the field that boosted numbers we expect the overall figures for 2007 to be similar to those seen in the last year. Whatever happens we will publish the figures.

Leaving the number of hits aside on an average weekday we register visits from some 1,700 unique IP addresses. Using industry standard figures this means we have around 5000 different individuals visiting the site every day. Each month we record circa 14k unique IP addresses. It can thus be taken that we have over forty thousand different visitors each month. To put this in context for those who post messages on this site, in an average month we have between three and four hundred unique authors, there are thus over a hundred ‘viewers’ for everyone who posts.

Your site continues to be in the top ten of all the sites on Sportnetwork and amongst the top rugby sites. Come all Within the Quins site generally retains a lead, although that has narrowed in the last year. We could best be described as being in the following group along with Saints and Bath.

We have said this before and stand by it. As editors the only concrete measure of how we are doing, as opposed to various comments that individuals make, is these figures. It is a fact of life in this game that people will come and go, the best one can hope for is that more do the former than the latter. Almost four and a half years into this journey that still seems to be the case.

Our particular thanks goes out to all of those who have contributed match reports down the years. Since our birth at the start of the 2002 season we have missed only one report on a competitive game. We are proud of that record. It was one of the founding principals of this site that it should record our clubs history as it was being made. That continues to be the case.

The Craic would not be the success it undoubtedly is without your participation. It is you who make this site what it is. It does not belong to the editors or to any individual. We all have a share in it.

We wish you a happy and peaceful Christmas and New Year.