David!caledonianblues wrote:I don't see what value the statistics you're collecting add to the view counter on the forum and the number of registered participants. Without a link to an external site, you effectively know the following:Ak76 wrote:If the rules and description of the competition are everywhere - the statistics will not be complete and I can not make the right decisions for organizing the next competition.
When linking to another site, you know the following:
- Number of people who viewed the thread
- Number of people who signed up for the competition
What you don't know is the number of participants you lost because you forced them to follow another link to read the information they were expecting on the forum, compared to the number of people who just didn't register because the competition wasn't to their liking, or because they were busy or unable to take part for other reasons. I realise with website analytics you get geolocation information, as well as information about the client's browser and how long they stay on the page, etc. However, the number of people who follow the link is not necessarily indicative of the level of interest in the competition, since people are forced to click the link if they want to learn about the competition. If all the information is readily available on the forum, then the registered participants figure serves the same purpose. Plus, the benefit of the forum is that people can ask questions and give feedback, and everything remains in one place.
- Number of people who viewed the thread
- Number of people who followed the link
- Number of people who signed up for the competition
The harder it is for people to obtain information, the less chance you have of maintaining their interest. There's nothing wrong with linking to your own site, I'm just not convinced it's the most effective way to garner interest. You have to ask yourself whether the statistics are worth the potential cost.
I can give you a link to the statistics of visits and explain what it allows me to see in PM.
I do not think that for the majority of this forum these technical aspects will be interesting.
For most people not it is a problem to go to my site and look at the description of the competition - this is not a factor that in 99% of cases will affect the decision to participate or not in competitions.
People who really want to compete will go through 10 links, just to join the fight.
I can give a brief description of the competition in the topic (reserve, animals, rules) and a link to its full description on my site and hope this will be a compromise which will suit everyone!