Ron Graham’s Report
— for Jan-Feb-Mar (1st Quarter) 2019
This page reports my work on simplybible.com for the information of those who take a special interest in that work.
Good Start to 17th Year Online
Now one quarter of the way through our seventeenth year online, we are serving more users and visitors than ever before. Visits for the first quarter of 2019 were 540,084 compared to 211,990 for the first quarter of 2018. More details later in this report.
New on simplybible.com
In the first quarter of 2019, I made 11 new Bible study items as additions to the website. They were...
Lessons
Why Walk a Narrow Road?
Aspirational Christians
Grace and Power
Grace and Wrath
Cherubim and Seraphim Explained
Quizzes
Quiz on John Chapter 1 (26 Questions)
Half hour videos
YouTube ~Revelation 1, 26min
YouTube ~Revelation 2, 29min
Short Slide Shows
YouTube ~Is Jesus God? (12 Verses).
YouTube ~What Shall it Profit? (Mark 8:36).
YouTube ~A Time for Gifts (Galatians 4:4-7).
Half Way Through the Links Project
In addition to those new Bible Study items, during the quarter I made considerable progress adding new links at the end of existing pages. These are links to related pages, together with a brief synopsis of the suggested lesson.
With these links I include three or four cross refences which use SiFi, the artificial clerk, to make a list of lessons on a given topic. As with the links, these cross references are related to the topic of the study page to which they are added.
During the quarter I added around 360 new links, and reached the halfway mark for this project. Of the 1409 study pages on the website, 710 or 50% now have two synoptic links and three cross references at the end of the lesson.
2019 Upgrade is well underway
There are four main improvements to the site to be completed (God willing) in 2019. These are:
- 1. Getting rid of “document.write” (task now completed).
- 2. Adding links and cross references at end of lessons (major task, halfway completed).
- 3. Inserting site speed improvement (minor task, halfway completed).
- 4. Fixing minor “bugs” and “issues” (several minor tasks completed, however others will present themselves from time to time.)
Website Usage
The figures for page views over the quarter (total of pages opened by visitors) were as follows:
| Month | Pageviews | Visits |
| Jan | 285,039 | 179,337 |
| Feb | 285,214 | 178,526 |
| Mar | 280,515 | 182,221 |
| Quarter | 850,768 | 540,084 |
(Source Awstats).
That is an average for page views of around 283,000 a month or 9,000 daily.
For the twelve months to the end of March, the number of page views exceeded 2.4 million. (Source Awstats).
Page views Jan, Feb, Mar (Year Comparison)
Here are the figures (from Awstats) for Page Views comparing the first quarter of each year shown
JAN-FEB-MAR
2015 ❱❱❱❱❱❱❱ 286,376
2016 ❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱ 381,344
2017 ❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱ 403,442
2018 ❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱ 396,560
2019 ❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱❱ 850,768
The activity for the 2019 first quarter should be regarded as a peak. The site has improved its performance markedly, however the 9000 daily pageviews achieved in the 2019 first quarter is probably not sustainable. I would expect activity to settle back down to an underlying norm of around 7000-8000 pageviews daily.
Requests for PDF documents
In addition to pages viewed (as shown above) there were more than 4500 downloads of lessons in the PDF format:
| 2019 | DOWNLOADS |
| January | 1409 |
| February | 1576 |
| March | 1520 |
| Qtr TOTAL | 4505 |
(Source: Awstats)
Pageviews per Nation
As an indication of the site's outreach, here's a list of the countries in February 2019 in which more than 700 pages were viewed. (There are of course many other countries where less than 700 pages were viewed.)
PAGEVIEWS FOR NATIONS IN MONTH OF FEB 2019 United States...... 147,127 Australia........... 26,983 Nigeria............. 15,152 Philippines......... 13,681 Great Britain....... 12,744 Canada.............. 11,621 South Africa........ 11,059 India................ 7,385 Kenya................ 6,400 Angola............... 4,978 Indonesia............ 3,423 Ghana................ 3,209 Singapore............ 1,975 Malaysia............. 1,822 Jamaica.............. 1,650 New Zealand.......... 1,417 United Arab Emirates. 1,382 Tanzania............. 1,310 Zambia............... 1,299 Germany.............. 1,183 Uganda................. 919 China.................. 798 Russian Federation..... 796 (Source: Awstats)
High Australian Participation
Looking at the USA at 147,000 pageviews, compared to 27,000 for Australia, one might believe those dud analytical sites that say simplybible.com is "most popular in the USA". However, to measure popularity, you must take into account population. The USA has a population of more than 327 million, whereas Australia barely touches 25 million. In both countries, around 80% of the population use the internet.
So the truer comparison is that in the USA simplybible.com gets 560 pageviews per million internet users, but in Australia 1350 pageviews per million internet users. So simplybible.com is much more “popular” in Australia than in the USA. I wish it were far more popular in both nations, indeed every nation. But we just do our best to reach as many as we can.
One of the reasons for higher Australian participation, may be that Google ranks a site higher when it is situated nearer to the user. So because simplybible.com is served in Australia, it is more likely to show up on Google in Australia than elsewhere in the world. People in the USA might participate more if Google gave them the same search results as Google gives Australians.
Google Search Maintained High Level
This graph from Google shows clicks per day (for simplybible.com on Google Search) between 11 November 2018, and 15 February 2019, in the range between 2000 and 6000 clicks. There are, of course. other sources of clicks, but the Google graph gives a very good idea of the trend. As you can see, after the normal December slump there was a high level maintained.
Copyright Terms
The website design, code, and the content of pages on the simplybible.com, are copyright. However, that is to protect people’s freedom to use, copy and distribute the material. It is not meant to prevent or restrict their freedom to do so. The copyright simply prevents anyone from taking ownership or control of my intellectual property and gaining rights to it themselves so that they might prevent others from using it. People may freely copy and distribute the material, provided they keep to some straightforward rules. These are published on the website.
Video Work
At present the YouTube simplybible channel has 26 video presentations. There are now more than 200 subscribers. Most of the videos (except the very recent) have had well over 100 views.
During the quarter I made three short slide shows and two half-hour videos. The Lord willing, I intend to make a lot of these half-hour videos for YouTube. The main resource is a collection of DVD backups of the VHS videotapes that I produced in the 1980s.
Some years ago, I replaced the VHS tapes with video disks so as to convert the master tapes into a more permanent and digital form. (The Bairnsdale church funded a machine that did a good job of this.) Now in turn, with improvements in technology, these DVDs can be converted and edited into videos for YouTube. Out of the cupboard and into the world.
Vanuatu Comes to Us
A number of people from Vanuatu are in Australia working in the orchards and market gardens. There's a large contingent here in Childers. Some of them are from families we know from our missionary work in Vanuatu two decades ago. We were able to hire a bus and take thirteen to church near Maryborough. They enjoyed the worship, as well as a look around the farm and a meal. We've also invited a few to share a meal at our home in Childers. These people from Vanuatu will be here for a few months.
Thank You
Thank you yet again for continuing to assist me in the Lord’s work. Thank you for your prayers also, and your interest and belief in my work on the website. We reach and teach thousands of people, around 7000 visitors daily around the world. By sharing with me in this work, you make it possible for you and me to "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation".
Love and best wishes in Jesus.