I decided to do an exercise to check out exactly how much support Boshoff has. There have been vague claims that Boshoff gets almost as much interest as Neil Watson’s CrimeExpo website gets.

So I went to Alexa.com which has a method of very roughly estimating any website’s traffic based on statistical samples. Its not exactly accurate, but as a general measure of support it is the only truly empirical method available on the Internet.

Having compared my real webserver statistics to Alexa, I know that Alex shows lots of sharp fluctuations which do not reflect a much more stable reality. So it shows traffic as fluctuating much more than it really does – but this is because of its statistical sampling methods. Alexa might have a few other minor biases. But the bottom line is that when it “lies”, it lies relatively consistently for everyone. So it does still represent a valid method of comparing websites across the world.

So I ran a comparison of Boshoff’s RealSouthAfrica.co.za website with Watson’s CrimeExpo site. Here are the results below. According to the statistics, RealSouthAfrica was launched before CrimeExpo, and the blue line shows the number of page views… then it disappears (but this could be just due to the statistical variations I described above). If you drew a line through the middle of the three blue bumps along the bottom you’d get an idea of RealSouthAfrica’s actual pageviews. Note: The Alexa graph below is comparing pages viewed – and not actual number of visitors. Even so, it does even appear as if Boshoff’s traffic may be declining. But Alexa is a bit “rough” on this. Don’t take it as gospel. Alexa is best, if used as a 6-month running average. Nevertheless you can see CrimeExpo in red must be drawing on average, about 8 times as much web activity (pageviews) as Boshoff’s site. (Note, CrimeExpo has a lot of articles and a lot of activity, and that no doubt plays a role).

Here is Boshoff’s home page, and he boldly proclaims that he has had 60,000 visitors in over a month. I wonder how accurate that claim is. I study web statistics on my server like a maniac, and I also process my own web statistics and I delete all statistics which are “not human” – i.e. web crawlers, etc. There is a lot of “noise” and junk in “raw web statistics”. It also depends on whether you’re looking at pageviews (i.e. pages viewed) compared to actually visitors. When I sift all the junk out of my own web statistics, I find my actual visitors are at least 30% less than the raw stats. I’m sure Boshoff is referring to raw statistics. He might for example, get lots of hits, but they might only hit his home page and then leave… whereas Watson might have many visitors who come in and browse.

Note too, how many newspapers Boshoff claims his site is advertised in. Given the very many mass media references to his site, it is amazing how few visits he is actually getting. Even someone like me, who has none of the Mass Media sources he has, gets much more traffic.

In one news report it mentioned that Boshoff’s site is “tourism related”… There is a strong business connotation on his site. Look at his home page, and how many advertising spaces he has running down both sides! Clearly, the real aim of his site is to gain advertising and business support by proclaiming things are better than they really are. The aim is obviously to protect business interests…

He only has 2 or 3 company sponsors. The most well-known name is Pick ‘n Pay. (People should really write them emails, or write letters or phone them and tell them what they think about this!!)

Look down the sides… how many empty advertising spaces there are. Boshoff is clearly aiming this at businesses, and hoping that they will sponsor him so that he can boldly exaggerate the supposed “positives”. Can one trust anything Boshoff says since, his aim is clearly to win business support and to pretend things are more rosy and positive than they appear to be?? I think, even if Boshoff gets anywhere close to the number of visitors he claims he’s getting… his site holds no interest for people, whereas Watson’s is definitely drawing reading interest.