Quote from: PaulChapman1) No idea what Ed's talking about. We at Steve Jackson Games don't put a lot of stock in where .....

 My mistake .
 I was wrong.
 I've edited my earlier posts to show that .

- Ed C.

I'm not sure how this is embarassing for us.

How long has it been since the new RPG Site started? Maybe a year? It has taken about 10 years to get to where they are. I think our numbers look pretty good. Not to mention that when RPG.net started, there wasn't as much competition as there is now.

Quote from: PaulChapmanSjgames.com users come from these countries:
China47.3%
United States18.1%
United Kingdom4.8%
Belgium2.9%
Canada2.9%

and this:

(from http://www.alexa.com/site/help/traffic_learn_more)

"Alexa computes traffic rankings by analyzing the Web usage of millions of Alexa Toolbar users."

Bah, everyone knows SJGames is owned by Chinese Illuminati. On that note, last night alexa said that 50% of therpgsite users are from Germany.

I hardly need elaborate what THAT means.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityBah, everyone knows SJGames is owned by Chinese Illuminati. On that note, last night alexa said that 50% of therpgsite users are from Germany.

I hardly need elaborate what THAT means.

That we drink a lot of quality beer?:mischief: :toast:

Quote from: jrientsThe metatags were hosed.  They should be fixed.  And I've now submitted the site to Google, Yahoo, and a dozen less famous other engines.

Yeah, once you put them through even one or two, the site will propagate across the different search engines. After that, you need to start working on getting links to the site. That is how a lot of search engines determine ranking. The number of sites linking to yours.

Bill

Quote from: PaulChapman"Alexa computes traffic rankings by analyzing the Web usage of millions of Alexa Toolbar users."

Yeah, that's one thing to remember about Alexa. My anti-spyware filter nuked it from my computer, and I know other people do the same.

Yeah, I'm still really failing to get the "embarrasing to us" part. I wonder what the OP even intended to mean by that, because he never did clarify.

RPGPundit

The embarassing part is twofold. The first is the "us" of therpgsite, it's embarassing just how tiny we are. Yes, we've had a big increase, but that's not hard when you're coming from very little. It's like if some guy on $5 an hour now gets $7 an hour - "it's a 40% increase!" 40% sure sounds a lot better than "two bucks." The web is a big place, and we're embarassingly small in it.

We'll get bigger, sure, and anything up is good. But we're tiny. Barely even a blip.  

The second is for roleplaying sites in general - all the ones I put through there showed that peak in early 2006, and the decline from there on in. That decline isn't a factor of the Alexa site's ranking methods, since it's not reproduced for non-roleplaying sites.

Quote from: JimBobOzIt's like if some guy on $5 an hour now gets $7 an hour - "it's a 40% increase!" 40% sure sounds a lot better than "two bucks."

Not to nitpick, but your "two bucks" mean an additional income of $4000 USD, if you work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year.  

I'd be far more worried about theRPGsite's drop in active members. Right now, we're down to 333 active members, when we had more than twice that number earlier this year. :raise:

Quote from: JongWKNot to nitpick, but your "two bucks" mean an additional income of $4000 USD, if you work 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year.  

Actually you should have said, "to nitpick", since that is what you were doing.

And that's the point - it may be four grand a year, but you don't get it in a lump sum tax-free, you get it in dribbles each week. And that's how a website goes, its popularity improving in small dribbles each week.

As you say, "active users" is most important. How the software defines those I've no idea. I'd be interested in how many people make at least one post a week. We're not selling books here, we don't want people just reading; a forum has to have participation. I've no idea what our level of active participation is, I've not perceived a drop lately, it seems as lively as ever to me. Off-Topic is quieter since Dominus Nox fucked off, but the rest of the subforums seem as lively to me.

Quote from: JimBobOzActually you should have said, "to nitpick", since that is what you were doing.

EDIT: I didn't want it to look like nitpicking, because that wasn't my intention. I was just writing from personal experience: I know that when I was earning a ridiculously low amount of money (even by .UY standards), a percentage increase like that would have meant a hell of a difference for me and my family. Different hats fit different people, and all that.

QuoteAs you say, "active users" is most important. How the software defines those I've no idea.

I think that it is defined as people who posted here in the last X number of days. It could be 30, 60, 7...

Active membership is based on who actually logs in over the last couple of months.
Basically, we have a core of several dozen users who are regular posters.  That's not bad; our percentage of "active users", and of "active posters", in relativity to our size is probably as good or better than RPG.net's equivalent.

The decline you've noticed, Jong, is probably due to a reduction in spambots thanks to the brilliant efforts of our techno-mods.  It wasn't really anything to do with the number of people who are actually posting, which has stayed about even if not increased (except for Off-topic, as Jimbob noted, which went pretty quiet for a while after Nox left, but has slowly been experiencing a rebirth now that people realized its possible to post here once again without this being the Nox Show).
So I wouldn't be too worried about that, frankly.

Again, as to our specific size, the main thing is we're continuing to grow, and getting bigger and better every day.

RPGPundit

You know what? I'm enthusiastic about the future of this site. Despite the fact this place only morphed into therpgsite mere months ago, this place is growing quickly, and it's one of the few sizable non-denominational English-speaking pen and paper rpg websites on the Internet.

The verbal banter here is good, the moderation is "hands-off", and it's a fine place to learn something new.

I dig it, and I'm here to stay.

Thanks a lot Lamb!

RPGPundit