06/18/1997 -
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!!
This week's hit report reflected a decrease in the number of visitors to the web site. No announcements were made in the Mailing List (Listserv) about the web site which may be a contributing factor to the decrease.
However, in the past 13 weeks, there has been an average of 18 hits per day, 125 hits per Week, and 607 hits per month (note: The monthly average for March was calculated using the weekly average. The counter was installed in third week of March, 1997).
Another contributing factor to the decrease in hits may be the inability of users to access the web site. Unfortunately, this is beyond the Webmaster's control. America Online is the current host of the FTP site for the web site's pages. Their servers have been down several times and their representatives have assured me that they are working on the problem. However, they are not advising what the problem is or what the estimated time of repair is. This is very disturbing in that users that attempt to visit the web site may feel it no longer exists after several failed attempts at accessing it. I will post updates on the status of the server as more information is made available from America Online.
A number of projects have been ongoing in order to maintain and/or increase the count on the web site. These are briefly explained below.
Search Engines
As reported earlier, the internet search engines
are continuously being worked on to add the web
site address to them. Currently, only 2 search
engines report the web site; Infoseek and
Webcrawler. These search engines will continue to
be updated. This is a difficult task as there are
several very old web sites being reported as
DataPerfect web sites. The search engines appear
to keep web site link information indefinitely;
regardless of whether the web site exists or
not.
Link Exchange
The Link Exchange is a free advertising service
feature which was added to the web site in June,
1997. It's purpose is to allow webmasters to
exchange links among each other's web sites by
displaying banners on member web pages. Each
member web site advertises other member web sites
through these rotating banners. The Link Exchange
service stores the banners and controls the
rotation.
Reciprocal Links
Reciprocal Links allow web masters to, again, add
exposure to each other's web sites by adding a
link from one web site to another. Recently, I
updated the User's Home Pages web page and asked
those respective webmasters to add a reciprocal
link to our web site. In addition, I have added
graphic logo icons for those web sites who
provided a service, such as the Font Exchange web
site.
Community Focus
Community Focus is a new web page wherein I shift
the focus from DataPerfect and computing to areas
of interest in the community. The current topic
of Community Focus is the Hurricane Season; Here,
the web page provides imporant and potentially
live saving information for those individuals in
an near Pacific region of the world. Links to
such web sites as the National Hurricane Center
have also been included to provide the best
possible resources on this topic.
Advertising
As a potential revenue source for the web site, I
will soon be introducing the Advertising feature
of the web site. Here, individuals will be able
to advertise their business, product or service on
the web site using banners and web pages. The Ad
revenues will be used to enhance the web site
through the purchase of FTP space, possibly fund
another web site location, and the purchase
updated HTML software for creating web pages.
Portions of these revenues will also benefit the
DP User's Cooperative.
Your help and Input is Welcome!!
Creating and maintaining a web site is not easy.
Funding it is even more difficult. However, I
feel that the web site is providing a much needed
service to the DataPerfect community on the
Internet. If you feel the same way, please let me
know. You can help by sharing your ideas and
making your interest known to your webmaster. All
imput on this web site is greatly appreciated.
Remember, you have a voice on this web site and a mechanism to have it heard; e.g. the News Room. If you would like to submit an article, commentary, or other such writing, feel free to send it to my email address and it will be posted in the News Room.
Thank you for supporting DataPerfect and the DP User's Discussion Group Web Site!!!