Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk

Back to thread
MNHQ

Missing pages - can YOU help us track them down?

20 replies

JustineMumsnet · 16/11/2009 21:11

So, ever since BigTech made his new releases (which incidentally still have a few wee glitches to sort, before you shout) we've noticed that folks are clicking less on all the Talk topic home pages eg this one. In fact you are collectively clicking on those roughly half as much as you used to and we're completely stymied as to why. Don't spose any bright spark out there has any ideas about what might have changed?

(There's a pack of Christmas cards (or three) by way of reward for anyone whose information leads to the discovery of our lost pages...)

Go to post

JustineMumsnet · 16/11/2009 21:30

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 16/11/2009 21:35

Hang on, hang on - it's just got much faster because YetMoreTech's had to turn all the ads off - one of them was stalling and slowing the site.

MNHQ

YetMoreTech · 16/11/2009 21:36

She speaka da trutha... www.mumsnet.com and mumsnet.com (without the www) are one and the same. It's like calling your DS "Steve" when his full name is "Steven". He is still the same little bugger angel.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 16/11/2009 21:37

Well personally I'm rather a fan of Google (aside from their policy towards China naturally) but each to their own.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 16/11/2009 21:43

Ta for that MP

JustineMumsnet · 16/11/2009 21:44

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 16/11/2009 22:04

Lost the pages the day BigTech's changes introduced a couple of weeks back

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 16/11/2009 22:55

whomovedmychocolate I think you might be on to something with search - if you click on topic from search results page you get a talk topic number - rather than name - hmm will check that out with Techs...

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 16/11/2009 22:57

Oh and we're going to offer a show all messages option in case you're logged out btw - someone suggested that. But will take a couple of weeks...

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 16/11/2009 23:04

Unusual amount of stickies I think leDodgy- we'll get rid of some in a bit.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 16/11/2009 23:06

So I see Maliboo! Erm she'll be gawn by end of month and we've already told the BBC lot what you think of them - so hopefully they won't ever think of sending them our way again is all I can say.
In the meantime can we appease you with Gabrielle Palmer?

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 16/11/2009 23:10

Ok we'll get someone special just for our older laydees Maliboo - more tomorrow I promise.

MNHQ

YetMoreTech · 16/11/2009 23:50

This whole 'www' or not thing is a complete red herring. The site has speeded up because the ad problem that was slowing it down has been fixed. Promise and everything. Go back to trying both and you'll see each are equally fast.

MNHQ

YetMoreTech · 17/11/2009 10:02

Thanks for all the feedback.

I'm afraid MP doesn't get the cards after all though, despite it being the best guess yet. It is true that "www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable" and "www.mumsnet.com/Talk/2724" both lead to the same place. And it might even be the case that due to recent changes that the numeric form of the link is being used. However, this doesn't account for the difference. The increase in use of the latter version of the URL is a few hundred, not the many thousands that have been lost.

It's definitely nothing to do with caching. It could be a measurement issue, but we've tested that and can find no evidence of it. We've already replaced the calls to Google Analytics with calls elsewhere and tracked them and we get precisely the right number, every single time.

I don't think it's that things take longer than they used to - the average time spent on the site hasn't changed. Nor have the number of visitors, or indeed, the number of unique page views.

It's not a function of something that has been changed then broken and fixed either. We have consistently seen it since the big changes a couple of weeks ago.

Any more guesses are welcome!

MNHQ

YetMoreTech · 17/11/2009 10:24

MP, we get some click path detail. One of the most interesting and noticeable things about this is that the number of times that (say) /Talk/pregnancy was followed by /Talk/pregnancy again has dropped a lot. This would be the case if pagination used to be on but now were off (the tracking doesn't distinguish between the views of each of the separate pages of the Talk topic homepages). But that's not so - they always had pagination and still do.

Looking more broadly at the path people take to get to a topic home page, that hasn't changed at all - the numbers before and after are amazingly similar.

MNHQ

YetMoreTech · 17/11/2009 10:29

Do we could? Is that like "Is you is or is you ain't?".

Meanwhile, the number of threads one sees on a topic home page hasn't changed, so it's not that.

MNHQ

YetMoreTech · 17/11/2009 10:30

JJ, yeah, I had a flick through last night looking for (bad) absolute links. It could be that. Where are you seeing them? In particular, links to topic pages?

MNHQ

YetMoreTech · 17/11/2009 10:40

ZakuroFujiwara, nope. Definitely not moved.

MNHQ

YetMoreTech · 17/11/2009 10:47

Not sure if that changed (probably not, but not impossible). However, like I say, if one looks at the increase in page views using the numeric form it in no way accounts for the change.

MNHQ

JustineMumsnet · 26/11/2009 19:28

Update on all this - we have now found our missing pages and the good news is we've been undercounting our visitors too - so there are in fact even more Mumsnetters than we thought.

Many thanks to JJ and everyone else who suggested the www lead. Turns out that Google were not tracking people who entered the site by putting mumsnet.com (ie no www) in the browser post BigTech's changes.

To claim your free Mumsnet Guide [email protected]. JJ when you're next in Kentish Town area - we owe you some sushi!

Watch this thread for updates

Tap "Watch" to get all the latest updates

End of posts

There are no more MNHQ posts on this thread

Back to thread