# Board Traffic - popularity rising



## Jon von der Heyden (Jul 29, 2010)

Did anyone notice the recent new high of users online at one time:


> Most users ever online was 1,107, Jun 30th, 2010 at 06:37 PM.


Impressive!


----------



## schielrn (Jul 29, 2010)

Maybe testing was being done? Or I thought I remember something about google searches when accessing pages from here actually being in that count now or something to that effect?

To me though it seems like there are less questions asked each day compared to in the past, but it could be there are just a lot more people answering now. It is hard to see many 0 replies anymore where there use to be a ton of them.

Maybe people are actually learning how that search feature works.


----------



## schielrn (Jul 29, 2010)

This is what I was looking for:

http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1722163&postcount=12

  Its always about a popularity contest in life.


----------



## Jon von der Heyden (Jul 29, 2010)

Perhaps someone will let us know what the jump is all about...  Although even if much of this is due to google search reults the number is still impressive - means that mrexcel.com is a very popular resource for finding excel answers for non-members too...


----------



## schielrn (Jul 29, 2010)

I agree and that post is from less than 2 years ago and we have already doubled those numbers so it seems to definitely be gaining popularity.  Which is good.


----------



## Atroxell (Jul 29, 2010)

Ok. I'll let you in on my secret...

I have been telling EVERYONE I know, whether by email, voice or otherwise, that this is THE site for all Excel questions. I am sure I have told at least 50 people about this site, and that would be a conservative estimate. And if each of them told 2 friends, who in turn each told 2 friends, and so on and so on...

Yes, that's right, *I* am the reason for the surge. 

You're welcome!

***********************************************
***********************************************

Seriously though, I do tell everyone I know about this site--every opportunity I have. My family is tired of my "proselytizing" for mrexcel.com. A chorus of groans can often be heard when someone mistakenly mentions Excel in my presence... although family members have also been overheard mentioning it to their friends, especially when attempting to re-direct them from a conversation with me about Excel.

The real reason why this site is growing is because the people here are accessible and knowledgeable. And many answers can be found in a matter of minutes, not hours or days. All of the hard-working people at this site are respectful and respectable (well...some may argue that point just for kicks, but I have never had reason to believe otherwise.) That's the real reason why the site is growing.

Congratulations and Thanks to all who work to make this THE BEST EXCEL FORUM ON THE WEB!


----------



## scottylad2 (Jul 29, 2010)

It's a good site. By that, i mean it's easy to navigate through, it's not overly moderated in the Forums and there's no complaints if a novice answers a question. I've been on some forums where you had to be every day for months without making any comments, coz if you did you were quickly ridiculed and made to feel like you weren't part of the community. It's not Cliquey!

And it's the best free learning resource on the plantet bar none when it comes to Excel, with access to some of the finest Excel brains who as the earlier poster mentioned share their knowledge with grace.. I've learned loads here. 

I just hope it doesn't get so popular that the community feel disappears

I'm sure the opposite sex find me far more attractive now that I know some Excel, in fact the mere mention of it to my wife and she starts to talk of bed.....think the phrase is you talk about Excel once more and I'm going to bed!!!


----------



## duckncvr (Jul 29, 2010)

Hey folks. I was so glad to find this place. I wonder if the spike in traffic here is due to the Microsoft Office Groups/Boards closing down on June 1, 2010. That sucked.  I was looking like a hero at work all the time b/c I did all this neat stuff, then those boards closed and I was SOL. 

Is there a MrAccess board, does anyone know?

Thanks!!


----------



## Joe4 (Jul 29, 2010)

> Is there a MrAccess board, does anyone know?


This board has an Access forum here: http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=18

You should be able to see it from the Main Page.


----------



## duckncvr (Jul 29, 2010)

Joe4 said:


> This board has an Access forum here: http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=18
> 
> You should be able to see it from the Main Page.


 
thanks!


----------



## Jon von der Heyden (Jul 30, 2010)

scottylad2 said:


> It's a good site. By that, i mean it's easy to navigate through, it's not overly moderated in the Forums and there's no complaints if a novice answers a question.



The mods here are determined to keep a friendly atmosphere and avoid being too strict.  We were all newbies at one time, and for me it's through determination to answer questions I don't know the answers to that develops my excel skills.  Almost everything I know has been learned as a result of participation at this forum.  And having been here for a fair few years now I recall a number of 'big-hitters' starting out at basic level...  Any novice member here is most welcome to participate in any questions I ask! 



duckncvr said:


> I was so glad to find this place. I wonder if the spike in traffic here  is due to the Microsoft Office Groups/Boards closing down on June 1,  2010.


  That may have a role to play.  I never even knew that though.  Welcome to the board!


----------



## Domski (Jul 30, 2010)

Jon von der Heyden said:


> Any novice member here is most welcome to participate in any questions I ask!



Anything that improves the quality of your answers should be actively encouraged 

Dom


----------



## MrExcel (Jul 30, 2010)

This is definitely an interesting thread!

Since this turned into a long post, I want to again express my thanks to everyone who hangs out here. It is the community that makes the board great. 

There wasn't any testing going on recently that would have caused the spike in traffic. Also, we have a site setting that limits the number of Google spiders to some number like 7 at a time. It would be interesting to see if other search engines are crawling.

Personally, I am always promoting the board as an amazing community and an excellent resource where people can find help 24x7. However, even though I do a lot of seminars, that still only reaches 50 people on any given day, and perhaps only 5% of those people remember the site.

One of the authors whom I publish is a moderator at UtterAccess.com. I will check to see if they experienced a similar surge after Microsoft closed their old boards. 

I really suspect that the surge in traffic is from Microsoft. I did a little video  interview about PowerPivot that posted somewhere on a Microsoft property this spring. Plus, the Office.com team has learned that I will gladly let them republish just about anything that they ask for. This creates articles that actually show up in Excel Help, with those articles providing a link back to MrExcel.com. I am not a person who checks the statistics frequently, but I remember that after my first article on a Microsoft website, they instantly became the #1 source of inbound links.  

OK, after writing that last paragraph, I did go run the statistics from Google Analytics. Interesting numbers for the last 30 days:

1,633,616 visits.
75% of those visits were to a single page. I like to think that this is where people found the answer on the first page and then went back to work. It could also be where someone was looking for an answer about Excel chewing gum and realized they were at the wrong place.  
Of the other 416K visits, they visited an average of 4.52 pages.
Sources of the traffic:
1. Google with 1.3 million visits originating from a Google search
2. Bing with 45K inbound visits
3. Yahoo with 14K inbound visits
4. Search.com with 2847 inbound visits
5. Ask.com with 1863

The top two keywords on an inbound search are "MrExcel" and "Mr Excel". After that, though, it is:

vlookup
excel find duplicates
countif multiple criteria
find duplicates in excel
excel countif multiple criteria
cagr formula excel (!)
check box in excel
excel
excel checkbox
sumif two conditions
how to find duplicates in excel
excel concatenate cells
...the rest of the list includes 574,157 other keywords used to find the site.

Randomly, here are keywords #1000 through 1010. Each of these were used 50 times to find us:

access convert text to number
activeworkbook.sendmail
convert seconds to hours minutes seconds
display formulas in excel
duplicate declaration in current scope
excel current row
excel elapsed time
excel fixed objects will move
excel macro move down one cell
.snp file
OK...and I will admit that I never check the statistics because once I sign in, then I start spending way too much time checking statistics. Here are the 10 keywords that were the 10,000th most popular. All of these generated 9 inbound visits (and Google clearly is using a sort where everything tied at 9 is presented alphabetically):

excel macro select current row
excel macro select printer
excel macro shortcut
excel macro sort
excel macro to insert picture
excel macro to save file
excel macro tutorial pdf
excel markup formula
excel max absolute value
excel maximum rows and columns

At keyword #250,000, these all had 1 visit:

excel last used cell in a range
excel last used cell in column
excel last used cells
etc.

Back to the big question...is traffic up?
For the 30 days ending July 29, 2010:
1,633,616 visits from 1,111,990 visitors
For the 30 days ending July 30, 2009:
1,310,472 visits from 877,121 visitors
That is 27% growth in one year... cool, isn't it?

Sorry for such a long post. Again, if you've read this far... thanks for being a part of this community!

Bill


----------



## Jon von der Heyden (Jul 30, 2010)

Interesting stuff Bill, and confirms that this place is growing in popularity every day.   And thanks extended to you to for providing us with the framework for this community!


----------



## schielrn (Jul 30, 2010)

Jon von der Heyden said:


> Interesting stuff Bill, and confirms that this place is growing in popularity every day.  And thanks extended to you to for providing us with the framework for this community!


 
x2

Its always nice seeing statistics and trends, that is partly why many of us love Excel anyways.


----------



## TinaP (Jul 30, 2010)

After reading Bill's post, I wonder how all that data would present itself in a pivot table.

Maybe it's time to take a break from Excel.


----------



## snowblizz (Aug 2, 2010)

Ah-ha!

So I haven't been making up unsubstantiated rumours when claiming that the usage of Internet forums as a source of support will become more popular in the future. That's a relief. 

Being able to access a place like MrExcel is as close to having your personal Excel guru sitting besides you as most people can get.

The realisation that you can solve your problems by checking/asking on-line seems to be slowly filtering through the population. Searching for an answer on-line is fairly common. Checking a forum much less so still. What makes a casual surfer convert into a participator is an interesting question I'd like to answer. Along with a multitude of other interesting questions tied to the use of Internet, and in particular forums, as a source of support.


----------



## Domski (Aug 2, 2010)

snowblizz said:


> What makes a casual surfer convert into a participator is an interesting question I'd like to answer.



Honestly, I was bored at work.

Dom


----------



## snowblizz (Aug 2, 2010)

Domski said:


> Honestly, I was bored at work.
> 
> Dom


Thanks!
One down 155,173 more to go then... keep 'em coming.


----------



## TinaP (Aug 2, 2010)

snowblizz said:


> What makes a casual surfer convert into a participator is an interesting question I'd like to answer.


 
Desperation.  I needed to sort out a macro, fast.


----------



## schielrn (Aug 2, 2010)

snowblizz said:


> What makes a casual surfer convert into a participator is an interesting question I'd like to answer.


I was already a genius at Excel and wanted to make sure the people on this board were up to my standards in answering questions before I started providing answers. 

As you can tell from the complex nature of my first question ever asked.

http://www.mrexcel.com/forum/showthread.php?t=255732



I got started as a participator as I was recommended by a colleague and never looked back from there. I would do the old search and try to find an answer before the forum idea was told to me.


----------



## RoryA (Aug 2, 2010)

For me (as best I recall), I switched from reading forums to posting after I searched for a few answers, found them and then just began to read questions to see what else I didn't know. In so doing, I found questions to which I did know the answers so I thought I'd pay back the help I'd had. After that, my life has never been my own...


----------



## arkusM (Aug 10, 2010)

Domski said:


> > Originally Posted by *snowblizz*
> >
> >
> > _What makes a casual surfer convert into a participator is an interesting question I'd like to answer._
> ...


 
Ditto.


----------



## xld (Aug 13, 2010)

scottylad2 said:


> It's a good site. By that, i mean it's easy to navigate through, it's not overly moderated in the Forums ... <snip>



Hear, hear. I *am* not one to ask question, but I detest . I can't begin to imagine how a poster feels when they ask their first question and they get a reply that they are locked out until and unless they reply to _some officious PM t*h*a*t* t*e*l*l*s them they w_eren't specific enough in their subject matter. Yes EXCELFORUM, I mean you! Grrr!


----------



## Richard Schollar (Aug 13, 2010)

Yeah and MrExcel only has professional, mature and sensible moderating staff who act responsibly at all times!


----------



## Joe4 (Aug 13, 2010)

> Yeah and MrExcel only has professional, mature and sensible moderating staff who uphold standards at all times!


Yes, they would *NEVER* mess with someones posts (or Avatars as a practical joke)!!!


----------



## schielrn (Aug 13, 2010)

xld said:


> Hear, hear. I *am* not one to ask question, but I detest . I can't begin to imagine how a poster feels when they ask their first question and they get a reply that they are locked out until and unless they reply to _some officious PM t*h*a*t* t*e*l*l*s them they w_eren't specific enough in their subject matter. Yes EXCELFORUM, I mean you! Grrr!


Can one of the professional, mature and sensible moderators send a friendly reminder to XLD that this is not how we should post here.


----------



## TinaP (Aug 13, 2010)

Joe4 said:


> Yes, they would *NEVER* mess with someones posts (or Avatars as a practical joke)!!!


 
Every time I look at Richard's avatar I think, "Didn't I date him?"


----------



## VoG (Aug 13, 2010)

TinaP said:


> Every time I look at Richard's avatar I think, "Didn't I date him?"




And you survived


----------



## Joe4 (Aug 13, 2010)

> And you survived


From the looks of her Avatar, I would say "just barely"!


----------



## VoG (Aug 13, 2010)

She obviously did survive but probably has 47 kids by now.


----------



## Richard Schollar (Aug 13, 2010)

TinaP said:


> Every time I look at Richard's avatar I think, "Didn't I date him?"



Yeah I get that all the time - must have one of those 'faces' I guess


----------



## Smitty (Aug 13, 2010)

> Originally Posted by *TinaP*
> 
> 
> _Every time I look at Richard's avatar I think, "Didn't I date him?"_


 
Even though my wife's met Richard, I think you summed up exactly why I don't let her see his avatar lest she say "Hey! I know that pose!"


----------



## Jon von der Heyden (Aug 14, 2010)

You should see Richard eat...  If you don't eat real fast then you don't eat!



Joe4 said:


> From the looks of her Avatar, I would say "just barely"!



  Makes perfect sense.


----------



## Richard Schollar (Aug 14, 2010)

Jon von der Heyden said:


> You should see Richard eat...  If you don't eat real fast then you don't eat!



You gonna need to stock up on crayfish for my visit boy!


----------



## xld (Aug 14, 2010)

Richard Schollar said:


> Yeah and MrExcel only has professional, mature and sensible moderating staff who act responsibly at all times!



Which is why we love you.

Just because I stood you up, it doesn't mean you have to react like this.


----------

