h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The newly relaunched h2g2 has served up 1.4 million page impressions to over one-half of a million visitors during the past month. Traffic is growing very nicely, up 350% since October 23rd, the day before the BBC email went out.

Three-quarters of h2g2's visitors come from the UK, US, Canada and Australia, but h2g2's appeal is truly international, representing 209 countries and territories.

What are h2g2’s readers reading?

Based on their reading habits, our visitors are an insatiably curious lot. They are learning about Alice in Wonderland Syndrome (A56993016), Animal Sex (A22547838), and the Amazon Rainforest (A925913). They’re music lovers (A791336), avid gardeners (A848595), and do-it-yourselfers (A472727). They’re a crafty bunch who’ve recently looked up how to make cushions covers (A1956008), play dough (A1134073), and tassels (A3213109). They love science (A408638), language (A218882), and history (A2946017). They’re preparing for the holidays by learning to make fruit cake (A830341), presents (A478127), and Christmas pudding (A660836).

h2g2’s readers are devouring everything we’ve written about Life (C72), the Universe (C73), and Everything (C74). Let’s make them feel welcome by writing more.

Lovely summary.

Wow

Kewl!!

So not just a few score folk chatting on an obscure website on a planet circulating a small yellow sun in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy then?

That's a lot!

This means that some countries do not contain anyone who has visited h2g2.

I think we need to find out which and try and market ourselves to them.

Wonderful news!

Who wants North Korea?

ooh I love this message. And I contributed to an entry that Somebody Read.

Brilliant!

I love this breakdown of what we're all reading! I recall an oldish thread that tried to do this, by offering 5 random guide entries, to get people browsing again...might see if I can find it. I this place!

I've never come across 'h2g2 Communications' before, but they seem to be doing a remarkable job. I feel fully communicated with and informed.

Now, regarding those numbers. If I was hosting a site with stats like that, I'd be paying serious pennies for the hosting and the big, fat pipe that all the data spewed out from.

I think Noesis and all the backroom boys and girls need some too.

I love the Announcement too!

wowsers! what great news! thank you for that very much!

there is probably a hit counter for the numbers and for which entries and threads are being visited, but how does the (h2g2 or noesis?) engine get this kind of information:

"Three-quarters of h2g2's visitors come from the UK, US, Canada and Australia, but h2g2's appeal is truly international, representing 209 countries and territories."

it must be by IP number?

Thank you so much for the statistics, that's reallly interesting and I appreciate you sharing it with us. I found the BBC poorly lacking in that aspect...

And yeah, I'm one of those odd folks from the remaining 1/4

Does knowing how many hits we get change the feeling of h2g2? Does it make your journal feel less private for instance?

My initial reaction is YAY!

That might change later on though, not quite sure yet...