Day: June 8, 2001

When I ran the log files from May there was some good news — the number of page views to my server increased by more than 16 percent over April. Even accounting for the fact that there are more days in May than April this was extremely good news. This is especially so since from 1998 through 2000 the site experienced slight drop offs in May’s web traffic ,which I attribute to the arrival of Spring in the United States (where most visitors to my site originate).

More importantly, the level of page views in May 2001 was only about 15 percent off last year’s level, indicating that the downswing that the site experienced after the upheaval in switching to a new content management system is starting to reverse itself.

Sometime this summer Conversant will add a feature that makes the discussion forum aspect of the software more closely resemble the very popular flat discussion systems such as the Ultimate Bulletin Board. I suspect that, combined with a lot of the new content that I’ve been able to put together thanks to the dramatic reduction in maintenance time thanks to Conversant, is going to cause traffic to the web site increase dramatically once September rolls around.

I will be surprised if the server doesn’t top 400,000 page views in October or November, which is the current near term goal I’m aiming for.

I love using map illustrations on web sites but they are a pain in the butt to make. Unfortunately a lot of the clip art and map making packages are either useless for web site use because they are underpowered, or they are too expensive to make it worthwhile (there are some really nice map making packages if you’ve got a few thousand dollars to spend). While looking for a specific map a couple days ago I ran across a site that looks like it can meet all of my map needs: GraphicMaps.Com.

The site has a lot of free clip art (though the clip art maps for individual countries is currently being revamped) that I’d actually be willing to use it on my web site. All of the clip art on the site is very professionally done.

Even better, though, is the business end of the site which is custom map solutions. There are a number of sample custom maps on the site and they all look drop dead gorgeous. Which wouldn’t mean a thing if they were expensive, but the promotional material says that most custom maps for web sites “are in the $50 range with a significant price break for multiple images.”

I’ve got way too many maps on my web sites to have every single one done at $50/pop, but that price is a bargain to have someone redo several of the most important and most frequently visited maps to give a site a more professional look.