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Matt Lee wrote: > > If we come to a concensus that we want to work more on the message of free > software and promoting GNU/Linux, then I will work on a new look website I suspect that the vast majority of the website users are coming there because they are already using GNU/Linux in some capacity. There might be mileage in encouraging Desktop usage, as the stats suggest not all our visitors have made the switch on the desktop. Otherwise the main thing people hit the site for are instruction in using "vi", or help configuring Apache (with Webmin -- losing battle if you ask me). But the crucial thing that drives all websites is content, especially content people want. The Exeter Chess club website sucks mud design-wise (sorry Dave but it does), but it gets four times the traffic that the DCGLUG site gets, because someone (Dave) put a lot of time writing, collecting, and organising content. My own personal site, still attracts a surprising amount of Oracle related searches, because it has content on how to get started with certain aspects of the Oracle RDBMS (and most of Oracles Oracle related content is behind a username/password so it has quite good rank in the search engines for those queries). So I suspect what is needed is articles like "How do I get started with GNU/Linux", "How to set up my own webserver", "Set up a web cache for a school" (or more likely how to restrict access to inappropriate content), or even something as simple as "how to install Firefox on Windows XP", which assume zero prior knowledge of GNU/Linux, or free software, would probably attract traffic and make more converts that the fanciest looking website. Most people on most websites, only visit the single page the search engines return to them. There are exceptions, people out shopping may buy related products, check the delivery details, or look around before they hit "checkout", but even then on middle or high value items I've quite often hit "add to cart", "checkout", and am gone before I can appreciate the subtleties of the navigation menu. But as such as long as the individual articles are well laid out, and look good, things like consistent "look and feel" to the site are irrevelant to anyone but a prospective member (and I don't think they'll be joining any other GLUGs in the region). Last weeks stats by "visits" (Unique IP, Browser, per day). Windows 1262 (61.5%) Linux 385 (18.8%) Unknown 357 (17.4%) Macintosh 40 (1.9%) FreeBSD 5 (0.2%) SunOS 4 (0.2%) Explorer 6.x 769 (37.5%) Firefox 615 (30.0%) Unknown 326 (15.9%) Konqueror 96 (4.7%) Explorer 5.x 77 (3.8%) Other Mozilla based 41 (2.0%) Opera 41 (2.0%) Explorer unknown version 35 (1.7%) Ask Jeeves 22 (1.1%) Safari 21 (1.0%) Lynx 5 (0.2%) Galeon 3 (0.1%) Explorer 4.x 1 (0.0%) Links 1 (0.0%) -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html