Who has been "spying" on my blog?

For various domestic and other reasons I have neglected this blog and the associated Genealogy in Hertfordshire web site through much of 2017. Yesterday I decided to check it out prior to makings some pre-Christmas posts and updates,

Because of the lack of new posts this blog has been getting an average of 150 to 200 hits a day so I was totally gob-smacked to find that the partial day total yesterday afternoon was over 7000 hits and that the most recent pages visited were all from 2012! Something very odd was going on. Today things seem back to normal about 20 hits in the last couple of hours, and the statistics show that over a 24 hour period the site was hit about 10,000 times. However there is nothing unusual in the number of traffic sources - so there is no indication who was accessing the blog.

Has anyone else noticed such extreme usage pecks on their blogs?

The profile of the "attack" on this blog
The normal "background" is about 100 hits a say

February Report - Stats and additional updates

There has been a lot of email correspondence and other activities related to the site during February, complicated by the fact that I have moved all correspondence onto my newest computer - while the master web site has had to remain (due to software incompatibility) on my old system. The following is a summary of the more important activities that have not already been covered in this Newsletter.

Statistics

Activity on the main site and the newsletter have been comparable with recent years, but the number of emails I have received appears to have gone up. The only disappointing thing is that while there have been over 230 visits to the "Donations" page there has not been a single donation into the online collecting box for the mentally ill in Hertfordshire. 

"Genealogy in Hertfordshire" statistics for 2014

One of the main tasks in 2015 is to review the future of the "Genealogy in Hertfordshire" site. The support software is creaking with old age, the site itself large and has expanded to about one gigabyte, and at the age of 76 I will not be able to manage it for ever. For this reason it is appropriate to look at the recent usage statistics in some detail:

A busy March - but a quiet April is predicted

While things may look OK up front with 25 posts, over 7200 page views on the newsletter, over 23,000 visitors to the main web site, and some useful activity @HertsGenealogy - behind the scenes things haven't gone as I planned. My office is still as untidy as before - I have made little progress transferring files to my new computer - I have not slept well, and have put on about 3kg when I was meant to be loosing it. The last of these problems is because I have spent more time snacking at the computer and less time on country walks, etc.  I am clearly showing signs of stress and need to unwind. 

Sandridge

... So don't expect a lot of activity in April - as this site will have to have a low priority. I will concentrate on news items, and finishing off a few mini-projects where 90% of the work has already been done - plus perhaps one or two rural relaxation posts. I will still answer quick questions and comments but anything new involving significant research will have to wait. I must avoid too much time at the keyboard so I also plan to get out and about more - starting with going to London at the end of the week for the Leo Computers Society Diamond Reunion, and including the opening of the St Albans Museum "Discover Sandridge" exhibition associated with Sandridge900 later the month. 

Points from the Post

Hertfordshire Memories: If you have memories of the last 100 years which should go on record the most appropriate place is probably http://www.hertsmemories.org.uk/ unless they are very specifically relevant to pages already on this web site. This site concentrates on the period up to the end of the First World War, and I can always link through to later material on other sites.

Local Germans in 1914: Jon drew my attention to a blog (Sausage Dogs Persecuted - the Fall of Dachshund during WW1) which mentions that according to Graham Greene (son of the headmaster at Berkhamsted School) dachshunds were stoned at Berkhamsted. This reminded me of Joseph Kimich of Hemel Hempstead, son of a German watchmaker, who committed suicide shortly after a newspaper article referred to the possibility of the sons of Germans being interned. 

Robert Clark of Royston: As far as I know his first post card views were published in 1904, and most were of Hertfordshire and adjoining parts of Cambridgeshire. A query from Shirley means it would be interesting to know if there are examples of his views earlier than 1904, either a straight photographs, or as post cards with undivided backs.

There were about half a dozen other items which would have qualified for a brief mention .. but I don't have time to report everything.

End of January Report and Future Plans

During January I have undoubtedly spent too much time on the site - with a record 53 posts to the Newsletter (and some other work in the pipeline which I hope to clear over the weekend). The result is that the total number of page views in the month have increased to 7241, compared with 5273 in December, and 2907 in January last year. The number of visitors to the main web site, 25801,  is up by about 1% compared with last year. 

Whatever happens there will be less posts in February. There are several competing claims on my time which I have decided should have priority.  I am giving a talk to our local U3A genealogy group on the use of local newspapers in genealogy next week and later in the month I will be speaking to the U3A science and technology group on the Human Evolution - with an emphasis on mechanisms. Details of this will appear on my other blog - Trapped by the Box - which has been rather neglected of late. I have also offered a related talk (concentration on humanoid fossils and archaeological finds) to the Histroiy group some time in the summer. In March I will be "performing" at the Herts Family History Society open day - and hope to upgrade to a laptop (and possibly different software) before that. I have also just been reminded that this year is the 50th anniversary of the William Pengelly Cave Studies Trust - and I really must complete a draft of a paper on the formation of the limestone caves at Buckfastleigh (based on research I was doing 50 years ago) by the summer AGM. I therefore intend to ration myself to a maximum of 5 posts a week, apart from quickie news items, with priorities given to queries and information from users of this site.

Most Popular Newsletter Posts of 2012

The following is a list, taken just before the end of 2012 of the most popular posts in 2012:

Herts Parish Church Registers to be digitised	24 Feb	535	You are probably all as frustrated as I am over this - FindMyPast promised the Hertfordshire Registers online during 2012 - and nothing has happened.
Site activity for the year 2011	1 Jan	529	A lot of people seem to be interested in the history of the site.
Dating Valentine Post Cards	11 Jun	213	Many people are interested in dating old post cards - Valentines are some of the most popular - and my site is probably one of the best
New Post Cards of Aldbury	26 Jan	200	This has been a bit of a honey trap - in that it includes the words "Charles Dickens" and I suspect many visitors are looking for information on the "Charles Dickens". (Now changed to "C. Dickens" to see what happens.)
My first impressions of the Canon Powershot SX40 ...	10 Sep	193	This "off topic" post would seem to be a very popular review of the camera. Some of may "Rural Relaxation" type posts have proved popular.
Cardboard Boxes in St Albans in 1898	17 Nov	160	A comparatively lightweight item with an unexpected title - so curiosity undoubtedly a factor. Some other pages with interesting titles have popped into the current top ten.
Harry Cull of Watford, World War One Photographer	22 Oct 2011	146	It is clear that there is almost always at least one First World War post in the list - and this is the most popular.

Site Statistics for 2012

Webmaster

The real test for the year was to see how the Newsletter Blog fitted with the main web site over a full year. Prior to September 2011 I had run a newsletter as part of the main site, but the ten year old software I was using didn't have the facilities I needed to link in easily with the latest developments in social networks. The following summary of statistics compares the number of visitors to the main web site, and the number of page views on the Newsletter blog.

Site activity for the year 2011

[For more up-to-date information see Site Statistics for 2012.]

The most important development during the year has been the moving of the in site blog to a separate blog site . I did it because it allowed me to restructure the old integral "newsletter" in a more modern format and has clearly proved popular as the usage statistics has shown steady growth over the period (868, 1358, 1684 and 2357 page views a month). It allows me to run the newsletter in a more imaginative way, with temporary and fun items, leaving the main site for more serious treatment of the material. The default statistics may be a little limited but has the advantage of providing rapid feedback, helping me to find out what is working best. While one can't track individual users it is clear that quite a lot of the visitors look at the current posts (this counts as one page view) and then explores further, either old blog posts or visiting the main web site.

Report on September Activity

September was far from being a typical month as it started with the introduction of this new blog and ended with my taking a holiday which meant less online activity in the latter part of the month. However the new blog has proved its value for the following reasons:

• The new blog provides an interesting new front end to the web site, making it easier for regulars to get automatic notifications of each update, directly accessing www.hertfordshire-genealogy.blogspot.com. and has already attracted some new visitors via google.
• The blog software automatically highlights the most popular items - meaning that first time visitors can quickly find the postings that others have found popular.
• The format is more appropriate to more ephemeral posts - such as news of coming events, items published in newsletters, magazines and on other web sites of interest to Hertfordshire researchers.
• It makes it easier to provide larger images on the main web site if required. See High Resolution Images of Old Hertfordshire Post Cards
• The statistics provides me with rapid feedback as to what is currently interesting readers of the blog and plan further updates of the blog and main web site accordingly.

So what happened in the first month. The new blog was only fully accessible from about September 8 and there were 868 "page views" during the month - suggesting well over 1000 in a full month. It would seem that visiting the site counts as one page view (however many posts there are on the opening page) and each additional post selected from the menu counts as another page view. This compares with 485 visits to the old blog in August. The most popular post was Buying Hertfordshire Wills Online

There is a world-wide distribution map and table available which show that in September the number of page views  were; UK 517, Australia 84, USA 79, Canada 59. Spain 50, Denmark 28, Russia 16, Finland 2, South Africa 2. It only shows the top of the list but I know that there have also been visits from Austria and India during the month.

The main web site had 19520 visitors of which 5499 were repeat visits during the month. and there was a total of 47460 page views.Only 480 visits were made to the Guide to Old Hertfordshire. However there were 429 referrals from 114 different pages on Wikipedia, which can be considered very satisfactory.