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This issue marks the beginning of our 8th
year OnLine - which is almost unheard of on
the Internet. The average life span of a website
(according to industry figures) is 3 months! The
industry claims a website which has not been updated
or added to in three months is DEAD! Search engines
stop visiting or cataloging those sites and move on to
new ones.
By publishing a new issue every week, we keep
the search engines coming back - and they keep
sending us new people! 21111 (10307 same month
last year) found us this month via google.com,
6650 (3763 same month last year) from Yahoo, 3588
(2353 same month last year) from MSN and several
thousand more from other search features. It is
amazing. There are a huge number of search engines,
the most we've had in one day was 522. Over
all, our readership is up a full 20% from a year
ago. We do give the search engines something to
search - there are over 25,000 pages on FAOL!
We have also added more Sponsors - good companies
with good products and service. We are honored
and proud to have them! More coming soon.
The biggest addition you can't see (actually I
haven't seen it but JC has) we have added yet
another new server. Yes, 'Igor' is on
line and he/it is bringing you this issue! Less
time delay and faster downloading of graphics is
the mission - we hope it makes reading FAOL more
pleasurable for you.
The bottom line here is not numbers or search
engines - or Sponsors ('tho they do pay the bills).
It is you.
We created this website to give you the opportunity
to enjoy the international fraternity,
(FAOL is truly international, people from 111
countries visited last month), and fellowship which
are central and unique to the sport. And to create a
sense of community which we felt was missing in
today's world of 'extended families' who hardly see
each other much less share the knowledge they have
with their loved ones. We wanted to re-establish the
sharing of information which was the way it was done
when JC and I grew up fly fishing. And lastly, to
encourage you to share the information and love of
fly fishing with the younger folks you know or run
into.
We are seeing results - about half of our readers are
new to fly fishing!
We plan on being here for a long time. We hope
you will continue to use this resource and to bring
your friends here as well.
It is for you!
If you'd like to see what the very first LadyFisher
column looked like in 1979, click
HERE! ~ DLB
If you would like to comment on this or any other article please feel free to
post your views on the FAOL Bulletin Board!
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