Bots would effect page counts, usually counting as only one visitor for however many pages were loaded. Some bots are clever and try to fool things by changing apparent IPA frequently but really, Bob and I keep up with it to maintain a nice bot filter to keep out known aggressive bots. So no, it hasn't been adjusted, but yes, it's accurate enough. :)

- Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

From observing past years, those four months always have big jumps compared to others. August, September and February are usually down; February because of being short, probably, August and September because of vacations and the start of school. College students are a big part of the BC crowd, so school events have some influence, I think May and June may be slightly depressed because of finals which would explain part of the July jump.

But what happened in July? Funny you should ask. :) I think several of the popular BC serials began in June or July and I'm sure that has something to do with it.

As for the January Jump, well, weather may have something to do with it, lots of quiet time in the Northern Hemisphere winter to spend reading. We've had a rainy winter here on the West Coast, too. And Britain, well a cozy winter read is a British Isles tradition that probably goes back to Boadicea. :)

We've got about 4100 registered users. About 1000 registered but never signed back in or signed in only once. Another 1000+ visit more than four times a week, several hundred more than once a day. But we don't have enough people who visit only once a month or less to really bother counting them, the bulk of readers visit once or twice a week, at least. From the logs, Monday and Friday are very popular with those people while our 500 or so "regulars" are here most every day.

Logged in visitors account for 20-30% of daily visitors and that has been pretty constant, so lots of members are probably visiting and not logging in, too. And many regulars have never bothered to register, they just read and hit the vote counter. A handful use the Guest Reader log-in to leave comments.

Hugs,
Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.

If you visit 15 times on Monday, you count only once. If you visit Mon, Tue. and Wed. you count three times. If your ISP deedles your IPA, it can screw up the count but such things tend to even out with other inaccuracies. BTW, we're missing 1000 or more visitors we probably would have got if not for the various outages in the month. :)

- Erin

= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.