Running report

This report covers a website based on the life and achievements of eighteenth-century inventor Henry Cort. Please email site controller Eric Alexander with any comments or queries.

Running Site Report

from March 2007

July 2008 upload

Site monitoring

Visitor numbers have been falling over the last few months: the weekly number dropped below 100 in w/e 1^st June for the first time this year, partly due to a failure of the monitor program over the last 36 hours of that week.

Landmarks

Site set up 24 July 2006

Official launch 29 July 2006

1000 visitors 17 November 2006

2000 visitors 5 February 2007

3000 visitors 9 March 2007

4000 visitors 8 May 2007

5000 visitors 12 July 2007

6000 visitors 10 September 2007

7000 visitors 15 October 2007

8000 visitors 14 November 2007

9000 visitors 26 December 2007

10000 visitors 2 February 2008

11000 visitors 4 March 2008

12000 visitors 13 April 2008

13000 visitors 28 May 2008

14000 visitors 18 July 2008

Monthly totals: new visitors

Record for new visitors per week: 284 for w/e 20 January 2008

Record for new visitors per day: 112 on 14 February 2008

Previous record 66 !!

Record for a Sunday: 61 on 28 October 2007

On 13^th October 2007 the number of visiting countries reached 100.

Countries visiting most frequently are UK and USA.

Entry to site

Although there are several sites that link to this one, the main mode of access has been a Web search.

Since site revision in January 2008 there has been a marked change in key phrase selection.

5 November 2007

15 February 2008

Analysis of 100 visits 10-14 July 2007 (only attempt so far)

Dedicated visits 40

Direct, linked, searching for “Henry Cort” or “puddling”

Iron-related topics 9

Including searches for named ironmasters

Other featured topics 33

e.g. “Arethusa”, “Samuel Marshall”

Accidental visits 18

Duration of visits

The majority of visits are still single-page, which register as “less than 5 secs” on the monitoring programme (which can’t register the time at which the visitor exits from the site). Since the January 2008 update, this trend seems to be more pronounced, combined with a wide variety of search terms and entry pages. One notable exception is recorded on the monitoring program page.

Site modifications

July 2008 modifications include:

· The page on Cort’s family, to add information on Cort’s latter-day descendants and the latest on his son Coningsby.

· The page on post-Cort puddling and related pages, to cover results of more recent research.

· The page on memorials to Henry Cort, to add information on a steamboat named after him.

· Pages relevant to John Becher’s residence near Stourbridge and the Porter family.

· The monitoring program page (one of the few changed in the June 2008 upload).

· Small changes to other pages.

The May upload featured a new page on the monitoring program, plus small changes to several other pages.

The April upload incorporated new information on Toulmin, Crowley, Society of Arts, 1791 signatory, Gosport worthies (Minchin), London ironmonger (Lindegren) and some Becher pages, plus minor changes to other pages.

The March upload included significant revision of the Cort family page, with lesser revisions of many other pages including extra maps on some of the Hampshire pages.

February uploads reflected discoveries of the Cort-Carpenter link, while the index page was substantially revised.

The January upload involved little new material, but the site was substantially reworked, aiming to make it more user-friendly.

The December 2007 upload included a new page on the tangle of wills in the Burges family, with associated changes and updates to other pages.

November 2007 uploads included new pages on Cort’s twilight years and memorials, with other pages amended,

September and October 2007 uploads included additions to the religion page.

The July/August 2007 upload included new pages on

· Connections between Cort and the campaign to abolish the slave trade.

· Connections between the Cort and Gladstone families.

There was also further information on the Becher family.

The June 2007 upload included a new page on London, and a page listing signatories to the 1791 petition: also additional information on the “links with Titchfield” page.

This running report is changed for each upload, while the list of visiting countries is uploaded after a new country has been added (every upload so far).