Whites Writing Whiteness Google Analytics Data Report: 1 July – 31 December 2020
This report contains provisional information about WWW website use for the time-period covered. It has been compiled from Google Analytics data, and will be subject to in-depth comparative analysis at a later stage.
Changes from the Last Report
The coronavirus pandemic world-wide has obviously had many profound effects. This has included the shutting of libraries, reading rooms and other places of documentary and archival research. Such changes have in turn placed greater significance on digital research and supporting analytical resources of the kind found on the Whites Writing Whiteness website. Giving evidence to this view, the WWW website has seen a marked general increase in user traffic and an increase in in-depth use, as itemised in this report.
In comparing user and traffic data from the Whites Writing Whiteness website with the previously reported period (1 January 2020 – 30 June 2020), several in the circumstances pleasing developments are apparent. Firstly, the number of visits has risen 10.05% (from 1,045 to 1,150 respectively). Secondly, the number of regular users has risen 23.86% (from 658 to 815 users) — with these users based in 76 countries and 407 cities around the world (versus 363 cities in 68 countries for the previous period). The fact that website use continues to rise is extremely encouraging, and analysis of the details of its usage and also exit polls and email communications indicates that this is related to the regular posting of research-rich materials and of the research tools needed to investigate and analyse these, with these materials being picked up by a wide range of both popular and academic users.
The Six Month Report
The WWW website was visited by 815 unique users between 1 July 2020 and 31 December 2020. The site was accessed 1,150 times, from 76 countries, with the top ten countries in terms of number of users being the UK, South Africa, the USA, Germany, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Indonesia, India, and Italy respectively, and with significant visits from other countries including Nepal, Sweden, Kenya, Israel, Turkey and Russia. The site continues to have a group of users who repeatedly visit the site, and many of these spend much longer than average looking at its pages. Particularly prolific repeat users access the site from South Africa, the UK, the USA, including some habitual users from London, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Sandton, Pretoria, Berea, Centurion, and Lancaster. For more detailed information, see Table 6.
Users view many pages per visit, with an average of 1 (1.41) pages viewed each visit. Overall, there have been 2,171 page views in total. There have been 124 habitual users, spending detailed time on an average of 2 (2.37) pages per visit, while the 806 new users view an average of 1 (1.68) pages.
Regarding how frequently users return to the site, there have been 2 visits to the site by 119 users, between 51 and 100 visits to the site by 90 users, and between 101 and 200 visits to the site by 34 in-depth sustained users. These data indicate a serious research use by a significant group of some 200+ in-depth users, with the corresponding most-used pages presenting verbatim transcribed letters and documents, and containing detailed analytical discussion. It is very pleasing that users are responding so positively to the most research-rich aspects of the website pages and that this has continued over a long period of the website’s existence.
Concerning length of users’ sessions, 55 users have spent between 3 and 10 minutes browsing the website, 39 users have spent between 10-30 minutes, and 8 users spent more than 31 minutes. The average number of users visiting the site per month is usually over 115 and sometimes over 150.
| Breakdown of Site Usage by Month: 1 July 2020 – 31 December 2020 | ||||
| Users | Pageviews | Avg. visit duration (mins) | Freq. visitor countries | |
| July | 113 | 334 | 1:31 | 27 |
| August | 120 | 274 | 1:12 | 16 |
| September | 131 | 345 | 1:46 | 24 |
| October | 180 | 381 | 0:44 | 27 |
| November | 180 | 401 | 0:36 | 37 |
| December | 125 | 436 | 2:25 | 35 |
The most-accessed page after the homepage is the project ‘Blog’. The project blog contains conceptual,theoretical and analytical discussions in addition to project updates, and many users continue to follow these discussions. There are a number of facilities which have been designed to support research use, and it is very pleasing that these are as effective as they are. For instance, the ‘Traces’ area of the website, which provides in-depth analyses of particular documents, continues to be widely read and used by readers. Additionally, the ‘Thinking with Elias’ area and the ‘Collections’ (providing detailed information about collections worked with) areas continue to be highly popular destinations for website visitors.
Notable email correspondences to report over this period have concerned helping family researchers trace family members who corresponded with various of the letter-writers included in the WWW collections. In addition, establishing the identities of people mentioned in a Schreiner signed copy of her Dreams was carried out for a notable collector.
As in previous reports, in addition to tracking use of the WWW pages via Google Analytics, email 30 and traffic arising from more one-off enquiries are also logged. In this current period, over 20 such enquiries have been fielded. These have been a combination of family history enquiries, requests for expert advice or opinion, the provision of information about secondary analysis/use, and continued requests for information concerning the early publications of one of the WWW letter-writers.
User Traffic
The majority of users (79.1%) visit the website through organic searches via Google and other search engines. Many users (19.8%) also find the website via direct link, or by referrals from other websites (0.11%).
Where users access the site from, and how often:
Tables 1 through 5 below present geographical images show the frequency of website usage for this reported period. These indicate number of visits to the website by saturation of blue ranging from light blue (fewer sessions) to dark blue (the most sessions), and the range in the bottom left corner indicates the lower and upper bound of sessions for this period according to continent (Table 1), sub-continent (Table 2), and sub-regions (Tables 3-5).
Table 1. Number of Visits by Continent 
Above, the range spans from sessions ((not set)) to 559 sessions (Europe), and indicates via darkening shades of blue that the most users accessed the website from Europe for this reported period.
The data above demonstrate that the majority of Whites Writing Whiteness website users access the website from Europe (41.5%), Africa (29.4%), and the Americas (18.9%), and that users from Asia and Europe tend to spend the most time on the website.
Table 2. Number of Visits by Sub-Continent Region
Above, the range spans from 2 sessions ((not set) [not pictured]) to 465 sessions (Northern Europe), and indicates via darkening shades of blue that the most users accessed the website from Northern Europe for this reported period
The data above demonstrate that the majority of Whites Writing Whiteness website users access the website from Northern Europe (32.8%), Southern Africa (25.8%) and Northern America (17.4%), and that users from Western Asia and Western Africa [not pictured] tend to spend the most time on the website.
Table 3. Number of Users by Sub-Region – South Africa
Above, the range spans from 1 session (North West) to 137 sessions (Gauteng), and indicates via darkening shades of blue that the most users accessed the website from the Gauteng for this reported period.
The data above show that the majority of Whites Writing Whiteness website users access the website from Gauteng (57.4%), the Western Cape (19.4%), and the KwaZulu-Natal (16%) regions, and that users from the Eastern and Western Cape regions tend to spend the most time on the website.
Table 4. Number of Users by Sub-Region – United States
Above, the range spans from 1 session (Alabama [not pictured]) to 23 sessions (California), and indicates via darkening shades of blue that the most users accessed the website from Connecticut for this reported period.
The data above demonstrate that the majority of Whites Writing Whiteness website users access the website from the states of California (16.5%), Texas (7.9%), and Florida (6.3%), and users from Virginia [not pictured] and Pennsylvania tend to spend the most time on the website.
Table 5. Number of Views by Sub-Region – UK
Above, the range spans from 3 sessions (Northern Ireland) to 435 sessions (England), and indicates via darkening shades of blue that the most users accessed the website from England for this reported period.
The data above demonstrate that the majority of Whites Writing Whiteness website users access the website from England (85.7%), Scotland (9.8%) and Wales (2.5%), and that users from England and Scotland tend to spend the most time on the website.
| Table 6: Cities, Number of Visits and Pages Accessed | |||||
| The data below show, by city, the number of visits, number of pages accessed on average and the average duration spent on the site, respectively. N.B. asterisks denote particularly intense site usage and/or high numbers of visits. | |||||
| Country | City | Visits | Pages accessed | Avg. visit duration (mins) | |
| UK
(10 of 103) |
London | 68* | 1.65 | 01:23 | |
| (not set) | 29* | 1.69 | 00:30 | ||
| Edinburgh | 15 | 1.73 | 04:31* | ||
| Lancaster | 146* | 2.77* | 02:45* | ||
| Leeds | 7 | 2.71* | 00:37 | ||
| Birmingham | 7 | 1.29 | 00:03 | ||
| Bristol | 7 | 1.29 | 00:03 | ||
| Glasgow | 6 | 1.00 | 00:00 | ||
| Newcastle | 4 | 1.00 | 00:00 | ||
| Oxford | 8 | 4.25* | 03:18* | ||
| USA
(10 of 98) |
Los Angeles | 5 | 1.80 | 01:08 | |
| Denver | 5 | 1.00 | 00:00 | ||
| Lowell | 5 | 1.20 | 00:11 | ||
| New York | 5 | 1.60* | 00:04 | ||
| Boston | 4 | 1.25 | 00:01 | ||
| Dallas | 3 | 1.00 | 00:00 | ||
| Houston | 3 | 1.00 | 00:00 | ||
| Little Rock | 2 | 1.00 | 00:00 | ||
| Phoenix | 2 | 1.00 | 00:00 | ||
| Sacramento | 2 | 1.00 | 00:00 | ||
| Australia
(5 of 5) |
Sydney | 5 | 1.00 | 00:00 | |
| Perth | 5 | 1.20 | 00:10 | ||
| Brisbane | 3 | 4.00* | 00:53 | ||
| Melbourne | 3 | 3.33* | 07:51* | ||
| Canberra | 1 | 1.00 | 00:00 | ||
| South Africa
(10 of 37) |
Cape Town | 54* | 1.56 | 01:26 | |
| Johannesburg | 43* | 1.37 | 01:06 | ||
| Sandton | 34* | 1.50 | 00:15 | ||
| Pretoria | 24* | 1.25 | 00:44 | ||
| Berea | 15* | 1.27 | 00:16 | ||
| Centurion | 11 | 1.27 | 00:03 | ||
| Roodepoort | 10 | 1.00 | 00:00 | ||
| Durban | 9 | 3.44 | 00:46 | ||
| Pinetown | 4 | 2.25 | 01:27 | ||
| Germiston | 3 | 1.00 | 00:00 | ||
Last updated: 22 July 2021
