Currently, our forum software doesn't track these totals, and moderators don't have access to internal tracking tools (e.g., Google Analytics).
It's worth noting that
traffic of a large website with several layers of infrastructure like NamePros cannot
easily be compared from one time period to another. That's not to say it can't be done, but
it's not a priority for us.
For example, the following can prevent traffic from reaching the analytical services that we use:
- Some browsers (e.g., their privacy features) and browser extensions (e.g., ad blockers) block website tracking, including analytical software such as Google Analytics.
- Firewalls and our internal tools that block certain traffic (e.g., for security purposes).
- Caching by Cloudflare, browsers, etc.
If we remember correctly, our tech team reported that
over 30% of our traffic does not reach the third-party analytical services that we use, and that is expected to continue to rise as more browsers compete to offer privacy features.
It'd still be straightforward to calculate a relative change in traffic if these factors were all consistent over time, but they're constantly changing.
Excellent questions. We, as moderators, would also be interested to know, but it'd require the tech team (e.g., a database engineer) to determine, and they're quite busy.
This number is very, very small.
There have probably only been 2-3 accounts in the past six months that haven't been discussed by the community, and those are due to things like retiring, cleaning up one's online presence, etc. The rest are almost always noticed/discussed, but even those are a very small percentage of the active community.
From our observations, the community is more positive and professional as a result of some of them leaving, and we try to encourage the rest to return by making improvements.
We hope that helps.