During 1997, the number of documents at the CSI Web site more than doubled--to more than 2,000--thanks in large part to a grant from the Eurasia Foundation. But what happened to usage? Did more people visit the site as a result? Who were our visitors? Where did they come from, and what were they looking for?

In answer to these questions, CSI recently prepared a preliminary analysis of data on the site's development in 1997. The complete analysis will be uploaded here in February. But we thought you would like to see just one finding now.

The charts above show the growth in site usage by "Page Views" (the number of Web pages actually requested by visitors), and "User Sessions" (the number of distinct users who accessed our site). As the charts indicate, average page requests nearly tripled during the year, while user sessions more than doubled! This was a function of two things: (a) a strong increase in visitors to our site, and (b) the much greater number of documents on the site. Uploading hundreds of new documents to the site, however, explains only part of our site's activity. We advertised the site aggressively: through our listserv, on newsgroups, and by registering with multiple search engines. We continue to request links from appropriate organizations on the Internet. In this way--and with your help!--our site can continue to grow as rapidly as it did last year.

Note: As the chart above shows, user sessions are consistently lower than page views.
This is simply because one user often views more than one page at a site.

We hope you have enjoyed this little introduction to Web site statistics, and have learned a little more about CSI. If you are a regular visitor, or this is your first visit, we urge you to sign our guestbook. We love to hear comments and suggestions from our visitors. It aids us in development of the site, and focuses our plans for the future.

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