How much traffic does MetaFilter get?

December 7, 2002 6:41 AM

All I want to know is -- roughly how much traffic does MetaFilter get? There must be a fair amount of people unable to become members.
posted by Pretty_Generic to MetaFilter-Related at 6:41 AM (27 comments total)

Is the implication of your second sentence that Matt should reopen membership (because there are so many people peering through the fence)? I think that would be a bad idea.
posted by languagehat at 7:14 AM on December 7, 2002

I guess that there's 2 separate and unconnected questions there. The amount of traffic - viewers, page impressions, whatever - is surely massive; the membership, however defined (active or not) is by comparison only 17 or 18 thousand. I can't see how they are connected.
posted by dash_slot- at 8:16 AM on December 7, 2002

It's probably a hard thing to calculate since there's probably so many repetitive visits from the same visitors.

You mean that some people actually leave here?
posted by ColdChef at 8:23 AM on December 7, 2002

languagehat - I wasn't implying anything. I agree it would be a very bad idea.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 8:45 AM on December 7, 2002

XQUZYPHYR, I think the number of seperate IP addresses logged would give a reasonable estimate.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 8:47 AM on December 7, 2002

May '02 stats is the most recent stat on /stats.mefi.

Like my friend ColdChef said, who would leave?
posted by riffola at 8:48 AM on December 7, 2002

page views is high, i've burned through 40k textad impressions in under 6 weeks, and i'm guestimating there's an average of 30 ads in rotation at any given time. so if textads leave toledo eastbound daily at 10:30 am and average 45mph, how many pageviews are there in a fortnight?
posted by quonsar at 8:49 AM on December 7, 2002

Also this has been brought up many times before, I think Matt once said that there are about 200 odd regulars.
posted by riffola at 8:50 AM on December 7, 2002

...with the emphasis on "odd".
posted by timeistight at 8:53 AM on December 7, 2002

So if I've decipered that correctly, it's 156,397 different computers visiting in a month. Right?
posted by Pretty_Generic at 8:56 AM on December 7, 2002

just amusing myself here... those stats cover a 28 day period from may 02 and sucessful page requests numbered 6,917,979. thats 247,070 per day, 10,294 per hour, 172 per minute and 2.85396 page views per second. that was the old server, and prior to membership reopening. this is rather awe-inspiring given that every succesful page request involved parsing a URL, formulating and executing database queries for the main page content as well as user prefs, new links and comments since last visit, comment counts, etc. and then formatting and sending you the resulting page. all between the time you clicky the mousey and the monitor goes winky blinky. while doing the same thing 2 or 3 or (by now?) 10 times over for other visitors. gutenberg, meet george jetson! jane, his wife!.... his boy elroy...daughter judy.... another saturday of non-stop mental cartoon theme music, coming up!
posted by quonsar at 9:08 AM on December 7, 2002

1 banana, 2 banana, 3 banana, 4....
posted by amberglow at 9:41 AM on December 7, 2002

Robards: "Thousands. Thousands of thousands."

Bronson: "They call them millions..."

Nutshell:

How many different, individual people per day visit MeFi?

Can't answer 'cuz:

A) About 17,000 registered "members," but this doesn't tell us how many visit daily, how mnay visit weekly, or how many have faded away.

B) X number of pageviews or X number of hits doesn't tell us how many are the same people visiting multiple times.

XQUZYPHYR, I think the number of seperate IP addresses logged would give a reasonable estimate.

Yes. Currently the only way?

Is this correct?
posted by Shane at 9:44 AM on December 7, 2002

I haven't run stats on the new server because I forgot to copy over my stat program's config files, but before the switch, the server was spitting out about 2 million pages a month to about 200k people. A quick and dirty check last week on a month of logs with another stat package showed about 4 million pages served up to about 500k people, but I've got to move the old stat files over to do a straight comparison.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:50 AM on December 7, 2002

shane: good as any. skewed by dynamic ip's a bit, but good as any.
posted by quonsar at 9:52 AM on December 7, 2002

served up to about 500k people

::: gets a sudden acute case of stage fright and runs away :::
posted by rushmc at 9:56 AM on December 7, 2002

...with the emphasis on "odd".

Speak for yourself, I, for one, am incredibly even.
posted by jonmc at 10:11 AM on December 7, 2002

Alexander the Great was a good leader.
Good leaders are fore-warned.
Fore-warned is fore-armed.
Four is an even number, but four is a very odd number of arms for a man to have.
The only number both even and odd is infinity.
QED, Alexander the Great had an infinite number of arms.
posted by cortex at 10:53 AM on December 7, 2002

See, boys and girls? THAT is what happens when you spend too much time on Metafilter!!!
posted by konolia at 11:30 AM on December 7, 2002

McMetafilter: Billions and Billions served.
posted by Mack Twain at 12:49 PM on December 7, 2002

cortex - QED, u a bitch.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 2:52 PM on December 7, 2002

You mean that some people actually leave here?

You mean we are allowed to?

*sneaks a look outside the door, but can't quite work up the bravery to step outside*
posted by dg at 2:55 PM on December 8, 2002

"Jane! Stop this crazy thing!!"
posted by yonderboy at 2:17 AM on December 9, 2002

next question: who spends the most time here (aside from mr. m)? of those who have the site up 24/7, who hits "refresh" the most times in one day? therein lies the true sickness...
posted by gottabefunky at 6:50 AM on December 9, 2002

gottabefunky: If I had to guess, it would be people stuck at work with internet access.

*cough*
posted by grum@work at 8:11 AM on December 9, 2002

I have met just as many lurkers as members while out in public.

The only number both even and odd is infinity.

If it has no end how can you give the end an ending??
posted by thomcatspike at 10:43 AM on December 9, 2002

PS, We have cameras.
posted by NortonDC at 3:48 PM PST on November 20
posted by thomcatspike at 11:05 AM on December 9, 2002