CHAPTER SIX COMMUNICATIONS - IMPACT OF TARTAN WEEK ON WEBSITES
Websites
6.1 Website statistics were collected for the following key websites as advised by the Scottish Executive:
6.2 Due to differences in the way that the statistics are collected for each website, comparisons between them are limited. Additionally, few comparisons can be made with the 2005 evaluation due to the limited information and the way in which information was presented in that year.
www.scotlandistheplace.com
6.3 www.scotlandistheplace.com is the official website run by the Scottish Executive to promote Scotland overseas.
6.4 Visits to www.scotlandistheplace.com increased by 604 visits from 4597 in the week commencing the 27th of March 2006 to 5201 in the week commencing the 3rd April 2006 (Tartan Week).
Figure 6.1: Visits to www.scotlandistheplace.com
www.scotlandinusa.com
6.5 www.scotlandinusa.com features advice from the Scottish Affairs Office in Washington DC on living and working in Scotland.
6.6 Visits to www.scotlandinusa.com also increased during Tartan Week as shown in the chart below. (Please note for www.scotlandinusa.com the number of visits to the site are generally very low so could not be plotted on the same chart next to www.scotlandistheplace.com.)
Figure 6.2: Visits to www.scotlandinusa.com
6.7 The visits to www.scotlandinusa.com showed a definite increase during Tartan Week, peaking at 484 visits in the week commencing the 3rd April 2006.
6.8 There were a number of referrals to this site during this period. Interestingly, in March and April most of the referrals to this site came via www.tartanday.gov.uk. During this time period, a number of referrals also came from the New York Road Runners Club ( NYRRC) website, the organisation which managed the Scotland Run.
www.tartanweekny.com
6.9 The Tartan Week official website was jointly funded by the Scottish Executive and VisitScotland.
6.10 The 2006 figures for www.tartanweekny.com are monthly rather than weekly due to the arrangement the US site builder has with Net-Tracker. Last year the site builder in the US used a different organisation called "Webtrends" but the US organisation migrated all their sites from Webtrends to Net-Tracker. This website can therefore not be compared with the results from the 2005 evaluation. This issue will be addressed in the 2007 analysis and web statistics.
6.11 During the period from the 1st March to 16th April 2006 there were 62,000 user sessions 5 (+25% vs 2005) and 40,000 unique users 6 (+20% vs 2005).
www.scottish.parliament.uk
6.12 www.scottish.parliament.uk is the official website of the Scottish Parliament.
6.13 According to the Scottish Parliament Information Centre the content relating specifically to Tartan Week was amongst the most accessed content for the period of time March - May 2006.
6.14 During this time, US domain names and service providers featured heavily. However, most of these are commercial and therefore it is impossible to tell if the visitors to the site have been accessing from the US, or via a service provider based there (e.g. AOL).
6.15 In March the gateway page to Tartan Week material ( http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/nmCentre/events/tartanweek/index.htm) was the fourth most popular accessed page, with 8,039 visitors. The Tartan Week photo gallery was the thirteenth most accessed page on the site.
6.16 In April the figures for the Tartan Week pages were even more impressive, with the Tartan Week Homepage being the second most accessed page on the entire website (13,714 visitors). The photo gallery went from thirteenth place in March to twelfth place in April.
6.17 In May the Tartan Week gateway page was the second most accessed page with 21,542 visitors, suggesting there were still many people interested in finding out more about Tartan Week in New York after the event. Similarly to March and April there are still a number of US domain names.
www.tartanday.gov.uk
6.18 The official Tartan Day website received the highest number of visits during March (8,110) and April (9,730).
Figure 6.3: Visits to www.tartanday.gov.uk
6.19 Unique users increased from 3,645 to 4,208 in April, while the number of page impressions 7 were at their highest during March 2006 (10,799).