Is DU on the decline?

[BlueEyedSon]

Membership appears to be growing exponentially, but I checked alex.com and it looks like traffic is decreasing. Primary madness over? Are people "getting a life"? Your comments are welcome....

http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?w=640&h=480&r=1y&u=democraticunderground.com

Sorry, you have to click, graph was not paste-able. Graph is of page rank, not hits or unique visitors.

[livetohike]

1. Hope not

I just got here :-) and am looking forward to reading the comments of everyone leading up to November.

[notadmblnd]

4. Things certainly appear to have slowed down lately

I'm seeing posts stay on the front page much longer than they used to. But I think the decline has more to do with spring coming and people being able to get outside more. Lets hope they are all out there socializing and converting the freepers for the fall elections.

[Marius]

6. Same here.

I just signed up yesterday! In all reality, it's been in the upper 40's here in Minnesota, so I've been outside goofing around, too.

[myrna minx]

9. Welcome to DU, from a fellow Minnesotan.

:hi: It is absolutely beautiful in Minneapolis today, therefore I shall log off shortly and enjoy the day.

[henslee]

11. Big welcome livetohike.. as far as the ? posed by this thread...

i dont think DU is getting crummy.... There's just natural ebbs and flows to it, same as the stock market, SNL, the Roman Empire.

[BeHereNow]

13. Welcome to DU!

We look forward to reading your posts too!
BHN

[henslee]

16. Gee whiz....group hug !! eom

[livetohike]

17. Thanks for the nice welcome

I live near the Marine base (Camp Pendleton) in SD County and think I am the only Dem alive here :-).

[myrna minx]

20. Welcome to DU, livetohike.

:hi:

[proud patriot]

2. Springtime

I know I'm out in the yard weeding and all that
this week . :hi:

[Screaming Lord Byron]

3. I reckon we could take a cull.

A lot of the membership is probably dormant accounts anyway.

[LiviaOlivia]

5. Maybe many are suffering combat fatigue.

EOM

[Lindsey]

7. I have a little combat fatigue myself..

n/t

[Spazito]

8. I think it is doing fine, it was only a spike during the heat of .....

primary battles so it looks like it has declined but it looks to me like it has settled back to a more normal rate of posting.

[TheFarseer]

10. you have to pace yourself

It's going to be hard to keep up enthusiasm for 8 months. We should have primaries later and compact the election season. We've alreadey selected our candidate and most people aren't even following election politics yet.

[Jersey Devil]

12. Maybe DUers are good at keeping spyware out of their computers

Alexa cannot register your hits unless you allow Alexa to reside on your computer, usually as spyware through some downloaded programs.

[NewJeffCT]

14. When I first got here 6 or so months ago

The board still had not been split between GD and GD 2004 Primary, so that may be part of the reason...back then, we had all the mudslinging on this board between supporters of the various candidates. Since that moved to another board and the primary season is now, essentially, finished, the traffic has gone down a bit.

[Indiana_Dem]

15. It's probably just the warmer weather....

I think people are also taking a break since Kerry is now pretty much the nominee.

I will probably not be on here as much as it's getting nicer and my daughter is starting the softball season!!! It will be good to get my mind off the terrible things that are happening.

I also have to take a break before I gear up to volunteer to campaign for local and national elections!

I'm still addicted, though, so I should be on here in the night to the wee hours when there's nothing else for me to do!!!

Welcome to all the new DUer's!:hi:

[JNelson6563]

18. Sock puppets no longer needed

Primary's about over, I would guess many of the multiple accounts are no longer used.

Julie

[tom_paine]

19. Life is cyclic

so, too, is DU.

No worries here, I think.

[Elad]

21. No, actually

Alexa is only representative of web users who choose to install their software on their computers, a vast majority of web users do not do this. Further, Alexa's daily rankings are not based on the amount of traffic going to a site, but rather how many sites have more traffic than the site being reported on. So, a website that has been having an increase in traffic can actually be shown going down on their graph if other websites experience faster growth than they do.

Fortunately, we here at DU have access to the actual numbers, and I can assure DU is not "on the decline." Far from it, we're seeing record numbers being set regularly. Traffic to DU is also greatly affected by the news in the world. 9/11, big increase in traffic. Wellstone crash, big increase in traffic. 2002 elections, big increase in traffic. Start of the Iraq war, big increase in traffic. Capture of Hussein, big increase in traffic. Nasty primary season, big increase in traffic.

All of these increases are, naturally, followed by decreases, they're spikes on the overall picture, but they're always a net gain at the end of the day. The down-slope of the spike is always smaller than the up-slope, indicating the net gain in traffic coming to DU.

Given that the primary season has just pretty much come to an end, we're on the down-slope. But we're still far ahead of where we were before, and gaining every week.

DU will likely grow exponentially through the election season, we expect an enormous influx of traffic and are starting preparations for dealing with it.

[joanski01]

23. Thanks, elad.

You're the best!!!

[BlueEyedSon]

24. Good to know, thanks.

However, the graph indicates that DU slipped from being in the top 3000 websites to top 7000 (approx).

Believe me, I'm doing my part :) (although I would never allow Alexa on my PC).

[OneTwentyoNine]

27. Which is an automatic install on late versions of IE

The Alexa is definetly installed when you install a copy of Win XP Home on a HD. Start it up IE,shut down and do a scan with Spysweeper from Webroot. Without going to any sites except the MS start up site the Alexa toolbar is on your HD.

I don't like being tracked but..the Alexa tracking info for various websites is interesting to go through and compare...

David

[Ksec]

22. Ebb and flow

of an election. Normal . As November closes in the numbers will rise to new heights not seen before. IMO

[humble truth]

25. Alexa is not very accurate

Just a handful of members using the Alexa toolbar can influence results.

[Kazak]

26. Watch it crank back up again...

gradually as we approach November.