I just noted that the number of reads on the annual favorite espresso blends thread peaked in 2011 at over 100,000 reads, but has dropped ever since to a low of under 30,000 in 2016. Is this a general trend on HB?

The Favorite Espresso Blends 2011 was over five years ago and reviewed eight coffees. In contrast, the Favorite Espressos 2016 was comprised of a single review (?!?). Not surprisingly, the former garnered far more views than the latter. Alas, it's January and the time for New Year's resolutions. We need to start reviews earlier and do them more regularly. Thanks for the reminder.

Thanks for the reply Dan. I'm not sure how to explain the following stats:

Favorite espresso blends review:
year # reads
2016 11014
2015 22633
2014 26907
2012 65965
2011 157970

In general terms, none of the threads on the Bench forum have cracked the 100,000 read mark over the past 3-4 years. There were several before that time.

Is this due to the fact that there are so many more threads overall that none get as many reads as they used to? I assume the total number of reads on HB each year has continued to grow? Do you do summary stats on things like this each year?

Maybe it's in part because people have had 5 years to find and read the 2011 review and only one month to find and read this years? I know interest in an article like that is bound to decline over time, but chances are it's still getting new reads even now. Maybe in 5 years the 2016 review will have had a few more reads as well.

peacecup wrote:Thanks for the reply Dan. I'm not sure how to explain the following stats:

2011 157970

How many of those hits took place in calendar year 2011?

That would be a better comparison. Also how long was the thread stickied for? And was it referenced by any external sites?

this forum isn't alone in the focus being on the gear , rather than the bean . These stats possibly show the increase of this ( again not isolated to this particular forum )

I'm not sure if time alone can explain this - I think it also has to do with a constantly-increasing number of threads, and therefore a dilution effect as well. I looked through some of my old posts in the Lever forum from 2006, and most threads in those days have 1000+ reads. Most recent ones less than 500. I don't think many people have been reading lever threads from 2006 lately, but I could be wrong. It would be interesting to see the stats in any case -

My day job for the last few years has been in marketing, responsible for community building and web analytics for a large computer company. While views are a good metric for general interest, I believe that a measure of community engagement is far more important. So, if I wanted to answer the question "How's the readership?" for a forum like this one, I'd track the average number of posts/day:



The first few years of any forum will have significant year-to-year increases since it's building from a smaller base. That said, the trend remained strong for HB with the exception of 2010. Maybe the drop was due to tightened personal finances following the Great Recession? Looking closer to the present day, the posts/day increases slowed markedly over the period 2015-2016. That could be a blip. Or it could be a sign that the site is reaching the saturation point for its target demographic.

It's worth noting that the thread views count is imperfect. While the code tries to weed out bots, it's working from a list of "known" ones based on their IP address or agent string. The list is never exhaustive and there's no standard identifier, so there's always a chance that a view count increment represents a non-human. If a thread is very old, the impact of bot accesses increases over time, since they will "view" the same thread over and over again. For a young thread, the number of human reads easily outweighs the number of accesses by unknown bots.

Very interesting, thanks Dan. I think the steady increase in posts/day is a sign of a vital forum and something to be proud of.

There is something to be said for reading though - one likes to think that others actually take the time to do so when one posts. After all, the idea of writing is that someone should read it. Food for thought anyway...

peacecup wrote:...one likes to think that others actually take the time to do so when one posts. After all, the idea of writing is that someone should read it.

I hear you! For what it's worth, the overall site traffic continues to increase year-over-year; that's not surprising given the posts/day average. So clearly somebody is reading what you're writing. That said, today's Internet users have a lot to sift through, so they're quick to skip over what doesn't immediately pique their interest. It's this line of thinking, i.e., seeing what's actively being read, that motivated me to write the Trending topics list.

Unlike the recent topics/recent posts listings, trending topics are skewed towards the "velocity" of the readership interest rather than the absolute number of reads or recency. For example, long-lived topics like Custom Wood for your Espresso Machine perpetually appear on the recent topics list, but won't appear on the trending topics list. I've found myself referencing the trending topics list when I'm pressed for time.