Fellowship Website Activity Overview
October 20, 2006 Meeting of the Executive Committee

There are now well over 15,000 documents available from the Fellowship websites. We have documents and study aids available in 6 different languages and provide a fully indexed search capability for Croatian, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, Korean, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish translations of The Urantia Book.  We will soon be adding German and Italian.

During the first three quarters of 2006 there were 1,741,877 separate requests for documents (page views) made to the English site (UrantiaBook.org). This is an average of 6,112 requests per day. It is impossible to know how many individual visitors this represents. However, a conservative rule-of-thumb is that the average visitor views between 2 and 3 pages of a given site per visit. This would give an estimate of between 2,037 and 3,056 individual visitors per 24 hour period, or roughly 1,000,000 visitors per year. It is not possible to know how many are return visitors.

Additionally, 812,385 page views were served out of the Spanish site (ElLibro.org) during the same period which would add approximately 300,000 visitors, bringing our projected total to 1,300,000 visitors to Fellowship websites during calendar year 2006.

The list below shows the 50 most requested pages from the English site along with the total number of requests for each one during the first three quarters of 2006. Remember, these figures are for the first three quarters only, not an entire year.

1. Home page, 46,304
2. Table of Contents for the online text of The Urantia Book, 25,124
3. Meredith Sprunger's "Introduction to Confucianism," 17,209
4. Table of Contents for section containing Jesus study materials, 9,138
5. Table of Contents for Part IV, 7,608
6. Study Group Directory, 7,607
7. , 7,435
8. Index of various introductory articles to the teachings of The Urantia Book, 7,176
9. Meredith Sprunger's "Introduction to Shinto," 6,747
10. Table of Contents for information and reviews about The Urantia Book, 5,454
11. Meredith Sprunger's "Introduction to Taoism," 5,355
12. "What's New"? page, 4,789
13. Overview of The Urantia Book, 4,372
14. Table of Contents for Audio Archive, 4,351
15. Meredith Sprunger's "Introduction to Buddhism," 3,981
16. Index to available Fellowship reader services, 3,849
17. Paper 1 of The Urantia Book, 3,738
18. Information about The Fellowship, 3,517
19. Meredith Sprunger's "Introduction to Hinduism," 3,454
20. Table of Contents for Harry McMullan's Topical Index, 3,441
21. Index to the Audio version of Part IV, 3,433
22. Table of Contents for Meredith Sprunger's "Synopsis of The Urantia Book," 3,170
23. Stuart Kerr III's "Selected Quotes from the Koran," 3,153
24. Dr. Sadler's "Definition of Friendship," 3,064
25. Table of Contents for the Advanced Studies section, 2,983
26. Table of Contents for Michelle Klimesh's "The Story of Everything," 2,862
27. Index of reader articles and conference talks, 2,833
28. Meredith Sprunger's "Introduction to Judaism," 2,799
29. Index to online study aids, 2,676
30. Foreword of The Urantia Book, 2,670
31. Fellowship online text of Apocryphal Books of the Bible, Book of 1 Ezdra, 2,636
32. Index to articles about spiritual growth, 2,617
33. Meredith Sprunger's "Introduction to Jainism," 2,551
34. Meredith Sprunger's "Introduction to Christianity," 2,550
35. Meredith Sprunger's "Introduction to Islam," 2526
36. Meredith Sprunger's study on a comparison of the world's religions, 2,484
37. Paper 131, Section 9 on Confucianism, 2,445
38. Table of Contents for the Paramony, 2,375
39. Bill Sadler audio recording from 1959, 2,373
40. Page of links to interfaith websites, 2,340
41. Table of Contents for Harry McMullan's "21 Steps to a Spiritual Awakening," 2,252
42. Paper 78, 2,212
43. Table of Contents for the text of the Bible, 2,174
44. Ken Glasziou's "Synopsis of the Spiritual Teachings of The Urantia Book," 2,163
45. Dave Holt's study of "The Missing Years of Jesus," 2,145
46. Dr. Sadler's study of the books of the Apocrypha, 2,110
47. Dr. Sadler's "History of The Urantia Movement," 2,104
48. Links to other Urantian websites, 2,089
49. Meredith Sprunger's "Introduction to Sikhism," 2,069
50. Meredith Sprunger's "Introduction to Zoroastrianism," 2,069

The English website is serving individuals from more than 150 countries.  See the attached "Domain Report" which lists website traffic by country for more details.

More than 75% of the traffic coming into the website is the result of individuals putting search terms into various Internet search engines.  Almost 35% of the traffic through the English site comes from Google alone.  Another 14% comes from Yahoo.  The attached "Referring Site Report" provides details.

The "Search Word Report" shows the words which are entered into search engines that subsequently lead inquirers to our website.  From the English site, in order of number of requests, we have:

Urantia
Jesus
Confucianism
Urantia Book
Biography of Jesus
religion
beliefs
definition of friendship
God
Taoism
Koran
Shinto
Introduction + Urantia Book
Urantia Papers
Hinduism
spiritual
Buddhism
Christian
religious
family
Shintoism
trinity
Jainism
personality

On the Spanish website Google provides more than 45% of the traffic to the site. During the first three quarters of 2006, the Spanish site has served pages to inquirers from more than 100 different countries, including every country in Latin America.   The most requested documents from the Spanish site (translated into English)  along with the number of requests for the first three quarters of 1006 are:

1. Home Page, 21,795
2. Table of contents for the Spanish text of The Urantia Book, 20,003
3. Study of the twelve apostles, 7,556
4. Table of contents for the online Spanish text of the Bible, 7,003
5. Table of contents for Spanish Part I of The Urantia Book, 6,069
6. Spanish introduction to The Urantia Book, 4,100
7. Table of contents for Part IV, 3,243
8. Nina Bravo's study on values and family life, 3,238
9. A study on the use of The Urantia Book in the novels of JJ Benitez, 2,800
10. Paper 42, section 5, 2,774
11. Table of contents for the second half of Part II of The Urantia Book, 2,505
12. Table of contents for the second half of Part I of The Urantia Book, 2,469
13. Table of contents for Spanish translation of Bill Sadler's "A Study of the Master Universe," 2,288
14. Table of contents for the last 1/4 of Part IV, 2,210
15. Table of contents for the first half of Part II, 2,190
16. Study on how Seraphim work, 2,179
17. A study on the significance of Pentecost, 2,160
18. Table of contents for first part of Part III, 2,097
19. Foreword, first section, 2,073
20. Foreword, second section, 2,001
21. Table of contents for second part of Part IV, 1,969
22. Table of contents for last part of Part III, 1,877
23. Table of contents for section of Jesus studies, 1,864
24. Table of contents for third part of Part IV, 1,856
25. A study of the lesson on self-mastery, 1,800
26. Foreword, 1,788
27. Paper 196,section 2, 1,785
28. Study on worship, 1,671
29. Third section of the Foreword, 1,590
30. Study on faith, 1,564
31. Table of contents for second part of Part III, 1,541
32. Paper 64, section 7, 1,423
33. Study of the sequence of events in the life of Jesus, 1,401
34. Study on astronomy in The Urantia Book, 1,388
35. Meredith Sprunger's writing on the origin of the book, 1,382
36. Table of contents for third part of Part III, 1,338
37. Table of contents for fourth part of Part III, 1,290
38. Study on Rodan and The Art of Living, 1,284
39. Table of contents for Spanish translation of Harry McMullan's "21 Steps", 1,282
40. Fourth section of the Foreword, 1,266
41. Paper 42, section 3, 1,249
42. A study of dates related to Urantia Book cosmology, 1,242
43. Index to the discourses of Jesus, 1,202
44. The Discourses of Jesus, 1,155
45. Spanish language information about The Fellowship, 1,144
46. A study on the topic of love, 1,141
47. Paper 140, section 3, 1,139
48. Paper 70, section 6, 1,117
49. Paper 139, section 4, 1,117
50. Study of the seven psychic circles, 1,101

The top search words (translated into English) leading individuals to the Spanish site are:

Urantia
Jesus
Libro de Urantia
Apostles
God
Universe
Life
Value
Man
Reina Valera (Version of the Spanish Text of the Bible we provide -- the version used in the translation of The Urantia Book)
Family
Meanings
Energy manifestations
Marriage
Evolution
Personality
Seraphim

Records for the Spanish site show a significantly higher number of downloads of major portions of the text than is the case in English.

Additional Notes on Current Website Activity

 

The Fellowship websites and the results indicated by the accompanying statistics are the result of some 10 years of work and a steady stream of input from the reader community.  They are works in progress. While much has been accomplished, far more remains to be done. 

 

Moving  forward with website development involves the following:

 

1. Optimization of pages which correspond to most frequently used search terms for better indexing by search engines.  Less than 3% of site visitors enter the site via the home page.  97% of the visitors enter the site via one of more than 10,000 pages which contain information related to search terms that the visitor entered into a search engine.

            a. Review algorithms used by most productive search engines and optimize individual pages accordingly

                        1. Document titles

                        2. Meta tags

                        3. Page borders and navigation

 

2. The most critical elements in the design of pages for a site like the Fellowship's are the border and navigation elements which appear on each page.  The border and navigation should be designed to draw the visitor farther into the website and to introduce him or her to The Urantia Book in the context of the subject of the search.  All the pages of the text of The Urantia Book need to be optimized in this way.  With our presently available statistics a professional web design company should be consulted for advice on further development. 

 

3. The most frequently used search terms leading people to our website indicate that folks are looking for 1) information about religion and spirituality in general, 2) information about The Urantia Book, and, 3) information about Jesus -- in that order.  Requests using search words in these three categories account for roughly 47% of our pages served out in response to requests entered into search engines. We need to review and update most frequently accessed documents.

 

5. We must always keep in mind that the public website is about service -- service to individuals using the internet to find information related to their religious and spiritual lives.  If we yield to the temptation to use the website for self-promotion, we will have failed responsibly to develop this tremendous resource which is available for the spread of The Urantia Book in the world -- a resource which is obviously attracting the attention of a growing number of truth seekers.  Let's continue to serve these folks as fully as possible. 

 

6.  The website needs to be divided into two primary sections -- one for public access and one for access by interested readers.  The section for interested readers is the place to be promoting participation in the Fellowship.  The development of these two distinct areas of the website is a primary task needing to be addressed.

 

7. Our existing statistics could be significantly augmented if we had a better idea of how readers are using the website.  A survey should be created and sent to known readers so that we can learn more about their usage of the site, their needs, their frustrations, etc.  This needs to be done to help us understand how we can make it easier for readers to get the information they are seeking, and what services we should be providing to make the website more useful.

 

8. The frontiers of outreach scholarship:  Duane Faw's Paramony is an important first step in contextualizing The Urantia Book for individuals from different religious backgrounds.  Stuart Kerr's selection of quotes from the Koran is an important beginning on the task for Islam.  But almost nothing has been done to contextualize the book and its message for other world religions.  Each of the major sacred texts should have something like the Paramony developed for it.  Each of the major religions should have introductory articles that frame teachings of The Urantia Book in an appropriate context.

 

9. While only 3% of website visitors enter the site via the home page, the home page is where anyone from the media or religious professionals would go to find information about the book or our organization.  A well-developed press kit needs to be created with a direct link from the home page.

 

10. The Spanish website presents tremendous opportunities -- opportunities which the Fellowship simply is not equipped to exploit at present.  There remains a pressing need for a Spanish reader services coordinator who could work in a developmental capacity with the Spanish website.  Significant opportunities exist in other language groups as well.

 

Current work on the website includes:

            1. Creating links to the Uversa Press DVD files from every section of the online text.

            2. Embedding links to the Paramony within the text of the book.

            3. Creating embedded links to topics in the advanced studies materials by Bill Sadler and Stuart Kerr.

            4. Expanding the ability of the topical index to be used with translations.

            5. Translating and publishing key documents in other languages in which the book is available.

            6. Embedding links from the topical index into the text of the book.

 

Fellowship IT services have grown to the point where maintenance takes up most of the available time -- very little time is left for further development.  The need for technical staff is critical.  There are three primary areas needing attention:  Webmaster, Database Administrator, and Network/Server Administrator.  The need is for qualified individuals who will put in a minimum number of hours each week.  This is not a one-time project, but rather a commitment to ongoing work, much of it extremely tedious and technical, but nevertheless essential to the work of our mission.  Our ability to penetrate the world with the message of The Urantia Book is directly related to our ability to exploit available communications technology resources.  As the Domain Report (which shows which countries we are reaching) shows, our use of these resources enables us to extend our outreach efforts into parts of the world which are unaccessible by any other means.

 

Lastly I would like to acknowledge additional web work being done by Mo Siegel and others working on the TruthBook site (www.TruthBook.com), Larry Watkins for his continuing technical assistance rendered to both the Fellowship and TruthBook, Pat McNelly for his service to the reader community through the UBRON site (www.ubron.org), Barry Clark and his translation portal at www.TheUniversalFather.org, Saskia Raevouri and her work at http://www.SquareCircles.com, and the many other Urantian web efforts which are listed at www.UrantiaBook.org/ub_links.htm. 

 

I appreciate the opportunity to be a part of the team exploiting these new communications technologies for the spread of the revelation.

 

David Kantor