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Traffic

I. Sessions by Month, Quarter, and Year II. Sessions by Website and Year III. More Traffic Stats IV. User information V. Browser Statistics

A session is any 30-minute or less period of time in which an individual IP address accesses one or more files from one ProCon.org website. This definition of a "session" comes from Urchin (now owned by Google) - the software program used to track our website traffic. Click here for details on how our sessions are counted. Read more details in our methodology and notes.

I. Sessions by Month, Quarter, and Year
:

 

Jan.

Feb.

Mar.

Q1

Apr.

May

June

Q2

July

Aug.

Sep.

Q3

Oct.

Nov.

Dec.

Q4

Total

2009

393,124

442,091

539,623

1,374,838

574,639

515,266

360,215

1,450,120

418,634

380,726

512,757

1,312,117

797,282

-

-

-

-

2008

378,489

445,541

457,175

1,281,205

528,715

467,624

324,841

1,321,180

341,331

301,020

515,440

1,157,791

678,979

595,174

412,958

1,687,111

5,447,287

2007

249,777

253,489

298,888

802,154

305,021

307,815

310,505

923,341

312,704

248,421

275,835

836,960

321,041

356,081

314,998

992,120

3,554,575

2006

144,645

139,076

184,386

468,107

176,227

156,240

125,332

457,799

168,068

148,223

180,294

496,585

240,884

274,141

245,059

760,084

2,182,575

2005

82,825

104,538

119,566

306,929

163,107

161,338

150,750

475,195

127,457

111,159

109,351

347,967

130,647

140,945

115,928

387,520

1,517,611

2004

-

-

53,931

53,931

96,175

107,578

75,865

279,618

80,176

72,309

71,785

224,269

89,480

106,581

81,283

277,345

835,163


II. Sessions by Website and Year (updated quarterly):

(Alphabetical order with parent site first)
[Launch date]
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
Actual

(through 9/30/09)
2009
Projected

(through 12/31/09)
TOTALS BY YEAR
835,163 1,517,611 2,182,575 3,554,575 5,447,287 4,137,843 5,632,862
% Increase Over Previous Year
- 82% 44% 63% 53% - 3%
Total Sessions Since 2004
835,163 2,352,774 4,535,349 8,089,924 13,537,211 17,675,054 19,170,073

  ProCon.org [Parent Site]
(www.procon.org)
72,124 65,923 222,011 347,241 799,756 688,964 918,619
1. 2008 Election
(2008election.procon.org)
[Archived - no longer updated]
- - -

22,353
[Dec. 12, 2007]

914,622 132,537 176,716
2. ACLU
(aclu.procon.org)
83,886 51,170 183,536 348,068 279,171 195,863 261,151
3. Alternative Energy
(alternativeenergy.procon.org)
- - - - - 55,134
[Mar. 2,
2009]
94,515
4.
Big Three Auto
(bigthreeauto.procon.org)
[Archived - no longer updated]
- - - - 18,708
[Dec. 3, 2008]
41,233 54,977
5. Born Gay?
(borngay.procon.org)
113,100 111,991 170,610 265,303 187,608 140,710 187,613
6. Cell Phones
(cellphones.procon.org)
- - - - - 1,541
[Sep. 24, 2009]
24,656
7. Death Penalty
(deathpenalty.procon.org)
- - - - 70,093
[July 31, 2008]
232,752 310,336
8.

Drinking Age?
(drinkingage.procon.org)
- - - - -
13,603
[July 29, 2009]
33,324
9. Euthanasia
(euthanasia.procon.org)
- - - 285,313
[Jan. 8, 2007]
378,781 324,384 432,512
10. Felon Voting
(felonvoting.procon.org)
- - - 41,596
[May 1, 2007]
148,905 76,112 101,483
11. Right to Health Care(healthcare.procon.org)
- - - - - 3,837
[Sep. 18, 2009]
32,614
12. Illegal Immigration
(immigration.procon.org)
- - - 15,465
[Nov. 26, 2007]
220,988
175,671 234,228
13. Insider Trading by Congress
(insidertrading.procon.org)
- - - - 25,690
[May 30, 2008]
46,141 61,521

14.

Israeli - Palestinian
(israelipalestinian.procon.org)
67,161 275,957 446,958 477,342 377,412 298,500 398,000

15.

Medical Marijuana
(medicalmarijuana.procon.org)
301,337 481,500 618,002 774,851 758,062 734,291 979,054
16. Milk
(milk.procon.org)
- - - 29,427
[Sep. 28, 2007]
164,066 123,788 165,051
17. Nuclear Power
(http://www.nuclearpowerprocon.org/)

[Archived - no longer updated]
6,354 15,232 32,627 41,658 50,625 37,927 76,680
18. Prescription Drug Ads
(prescriptiondrugs.procon.org)
- - - - - 8,032
[June 8, 2009]
14,056
19. Prostitution
(prostitution.procon.org)
- - - 151,660
[May 14, 2007]
440,317 326,827 435,769
20. Rose Bird
(http://www.rosebirdprocon.org/)

[Archived - no longer updated]
5,462 9,668 12,862 16,346 19,234 15,707 20,943
21. Social Networking
(socialnetworking.procon.org)
- - - - - [Oct. 14,
2009]
-
22.
Sports and Drugs
(sportsanddrugs.procon.org)
- - - - 460
[Dec. 29, 2008]
88,029 117,372
23. Under God
(undergod.procon.org)
49,384 158,720 149,094 249,351 190,326 123,306 164,400
24. U.S. - Iraq
(usiraq.procon.org)
136,355 347,451 315,873 401,776 298,451 196,943 262,591
25. Voting Machines
(votingmachines.procon.org)
- - 31,002
[May 23, 2006]
86,825 104,012 56,011 74,681
TOTALS BY YEAR
835,163 1,517,611 2,182,575 3,554,575 5,447,287 4,137,843 5,632,862
Increase Over Previous Year - Sessions

- %
-
+664,448 (82%) +664,964 (44%) +1,372,000 (63%) +1,892,712 (53%) - +185,757
(3%)
Total Sessions Since 2004
835,163 2,352,774 4,535,349 8,089,924 13,537,211 17,675,054 19,170,073
Year
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
Actual

(through 9/30/09)
2009
Projected

(through 12/31/09)


III. More Traffic Stats:


Total Traffic to ProCon.org
websites as measured in

(click term to see definition):
Absolute Unique Visitors:
Sessions:
Pageviews:
Hits:
2008 2,536,017 5,447,287 21,519,926 131,893,048
2007 Not available
3,554,575 17,598,598 47,136,448
2006 Not available
2,182,55 16,295,493 22,063,420


IV. User Information (archived surveys):

A. Topic Survey
Jan. 8, 2009 - Mar. 30, 2009 - 615 respondents

Survey of users to help determine which topic to cover. Health care was most popular subject followed by the drinking age, social networking, and cell phones, respectively.

B. User Survey
Apr. 1, 2008 - Dec. 31, 2008 - 2,217 respondents

Demographic survey of ProCon.org users and assessment of their experience on our websites. The survey showed that most people learn new perspectives at ProCon.org and feel the overall experience is useful and enjoyable.

ProCon.org websites are designed to be compatible with the most commonly used internet browsers (such as Internet Explorer or IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, etc.). We keep track of which browsers our visitors use so that we can make sure that our content always displays properly.

Considering how many schools use ProCon.org, these browser statistics may provide general insights into which browsers US schools are using.

The most common browsers used to view ProCon.org are presented.


VI. Definitions and Notes

1. "Absolute unique visitors" are defined by Google Analytics as (as of Nov. 4, 2009): "[also called unique visitors] Unique Visitors represents the number of unduplicated (counted only once) visitors to your website over the course of a specified time period. A Unique Visitor is determined using cookies."

2. "Pageviews" are defined by Google Analytics as (as of Nov. 4, 2009): "A pageview is defined as a view of a page on your site that is being tracked by the Analytics tracking code. If a visitor hits reload after reaching the page, this will be counted as an additional pageview. If a user navigates to a different page and then returns to the original page, a second pageview will be recorded as well."
 
3. "Hits" are defined by Webopedia as (as of Nov. 4, 2009): "Also called a page hit. The retrieval of any item, like a page or a graphic, from a Web server. For example, when a visitor calls up a Web page with four graphics, that's five hits, one for the page and four for the graphics. For this reason, hits often aren't a good indication of Web traffic." [Note: A definition of “hit” was not found on Google Analytics or Urchin.]

4. "Sessions" are defined by Urchin (now owned by Google) - the sofware program used to track our traffic website - as (as of Nov. 4, 2009) any 30-minute or less period of time in which an individual IP address accesses one or more files from one ProCon.org website.
Some examples of how sessions are counted:
* If a person looks at the Medical Marijuana ProCon.org Historical Timeline for five minutes, leaves their computer for 15 minutes to get a snack, and then returns to view the Medical Marijuana ProCon.org Votes and Polls page, then that use counts as one session.
* If a person looks at ProCon.org for five minutes, then ACLU ProCon.org for 10 minutes, then back to ProCon.org for five minutes, then that use counts as two sessions.
* If a person looks at US-Iraq ProCon.org for 10 minutes, then Israeli-Palestinian ProCon.org for 40 minutes, and then back to US-Iraq ProCon.org for 30 minutes, then that use counts as four sessions.
* If a person uses ACLU ProCon.org for 70 minutes, then uses Born Gay ProCon.org for 70 minutes, then that use counts as six sessions.
* If a person uses each six of ProCon.org's websites for 40 minutes each, then that use counts as 12 sessions.
* If a person looks at a ProCon.org issue site (Born Gay ProCon.org, ACLU ProCon.org, etc.) for 20 minutes, then an hour later revisits the same site for another 5 minutes, then that use counts as two sessions.
Note, however, that we have learned as of Aug. 2008 that:

A. If a person looks at a third party website (say, for example, Google.com) for two seconds and that Google.com page happens to have on it an image (say, for example, a button labeled "Visit ProCon.org") loading directly from the ProCon.org website, then the ProCon.org button having loaded on the Google.com page counts as one session even though the person never clicked on the "Visit ProCon.org" button and may not have even noticed the button. However, if that same "Visit ProCon.org" button loaded directly from the Google.com website vs. directly from the ProCon.org website, then it would not count as a session.

[Note: We did not count 90,000 sessions for Medical Marijuana ProCon.org in July 2008 because the traffic came from a button at stopthedrugwar.org using an image that loaded directly from the ProCon.org server. We also did not count 64,722 sessions in the third quarter of 2008 because that traffic came from an image on the 2008 Election ProCon.org website that was being loaded directly from our Under God ProCon.org website. The reason that we removed the 154,722 "sessions" was because those visitors had not even viewed the site that recorded the session.]

B. Because we changed our URLs on June 30, 2008 to include third-level domains (aclu.procon.org, medicalmarijuana.procon.org, borngay.procon.org, etc) instead of their prior two-level domain format (www.acluprocon.org, www.medicalmarijuanaprocon.org, www.borngayprocon.org, etc.) if a person visits a bookmarked ProCon.org URL (say www.medicalmarijuana.procon.org/california.htm) that automatically redirects him/her to a different URL on a new third-level domain ProCon.org website (say medicalmarijuana.procon.org/california.asp) then that counts as two sessions even though the person never consciously selected two sites to visit.

[Note: We did not count 216,574 sessions in the third quarter of 2008 because that traffic was coming from WWW links that were being automatically routed to non-WWW pages and were therefore being double counted.]