Status Update as of 10 OCT 2012 - The Crash of July and August 2012
Status Update:
I have just updated the
server stats thread.
The month of August was problematic for the first 2 weeks. Week 3 was "unusual". The last week showed some improvement.
September, however, and October (so far) have made me optimistic. Elsmar is definitely out of the "
red" and appears to be improving. However - Right now Google has been "tweaking" their algorithms significantly. In fact, they now call Google Search a "Knowledge" service as opposed to it's "old" moniker as a "Search" engine.
With Google+, Facebook, and LinkedIn now playing a significant role it's hard to tell what will happen.
At this point my dive into "OMG" territory has obviously changed to
Cautiously Optomistic. Elsmar is out of ICU (so to speak), spent some time in "critical care" but is now moving to the "general recovery ward".
As is evident from Quantcast, Elsmar has had it's ups and downs over the last 2[sup]3/4[/sup] years:
Quantcast - January 2010 to Present
Here is a graph going back to the start of Google Analytics tracking in August 2008:
Analytics - August 2008 to Present
I have no idea what caused the "crash". I have made a lot of changes, but those were to "static" html pages. No significant changes have been made to the forum its self. I can tell you that I have been following a lot of webmaster forums and there is quite a lot of confusion in part because Google is making a lot of frequent, significant changes to their algorithm.
At this point there isn't too much I can do other than to wait and watch. I'm sure we all know Elsmar will never be a big site like Linkedin, but for it's size I think it does well and helps a lot of people.
It's been a while since I have thanked the Moderators and the "Regulars" here who do so much to help people by answering their questions. Without them Elsmar could not exist.
My sincerest Thanks to each of you!