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Updated SM website and some interesting stats

Karlin

Administrator
Staff member
I've just put up (as of 1am last night!) the revamped Sm website with a new overall design that should make it easier to read. Also the video clip of Leo now links properly from the video page (though I simply could not get the file to run as an embedded image, much to my annoyance).

SM site: http://sm.cavaliertalk.com

The research page is now current (thanks to Carol Fowler who keeps the research info up to date) -- this includes the abstracts from the NCSU studies for papers presented last June at a major US vet conference. I still have other things I need to add including the important links page but will get to that eventually. Also I am setting up a page for buying Sandi Smith's book and Clare Rusbridge's SM DVD. This will refer people to the correct webpages though the DVD can be obtained from me as well.

Finally some statistics:

The site has had a steadily increasing number of visitors. In July it averaged 100 unique visitors daily and 3,078 for the month. Monday tends to be the busiest day with the weekend fairly quiet, indicating most people probably access the site from work computers. Most of the traffic also happens during daytime hours in the US, indicating that is where most of the traffic comes from.

The most viewed pages are 1) the symptoms page; 2) the Syringomyelia Made Simple document from Clare Rusbridge as a PDF download, 3) the Rusbridge treatment diagram download. The latter two were downloaded close to 350 times each in July. Another popular download was the Rusbridge summer newsletter from last year, which has the breeding recommendations in detail.

Interestingly I had 4 times as many people come to the site from a link on the Dutch cavalier club website than the link on the site of one of the two main US national cavalier clubs, the CKCSC.

The top 10 search terms in July were:

1 canine syringomyelia
2 syringomyelia cavalier
3 sm in dogs
4 syringomyelia dogs
5 syringomyelia in dogs
6 clare rusbridge
7 mris
8 sevenwoods cavaliers
9 sm video
10 syringomyelia
 
It is very interesting that there have been more clicks to your site from the Dutch club link than the USA club link. I find the CKCSC,USA's website very cumbersome and archaic. SM and MVD webpages are buried under several layers, making the information harder to find.

A hundred unique visitors per day is a really good number. Hopefully they all are taking everything in and telling their friends about the site.

Rod Russell
Orlando, Florida USA
 
I thought it (Dutch club linkage) interesting too but probably too annoying to post that on CKCS-SM. :lol: I consistently get a good number of visitors through them.

None of the English-language clubs present their information in a very accessible way (well the UK CLub's is the best but there's such a mishmash of odd things and no hierarchy of information, just everything mixed together under each health topic).

I can't believe all those US club sites are still offering only that old document from the UK club -- it has been ages since that was their own SM info. If people were relying on the clubs alone, no one would have known about the breeding recommendations (well of course no one in the US does know about them except from the independent sites and the UK club site...). Or any of the ongoing research, the genome scan, the published papers..., have seen an MRI, known about possible treatment options, known where MRI clinics are and who the certified neurologists are in a given area... it is extraordinary when you consider how much IS actually known at this point, and how little of this information is given to its membership by the clubs!

Do you track the numbers coming through your SM section of cavalierhealth.org? It must be larger numbers again, I should think.
 
Well lets just hope and pray that whoever is reading the info...looks, learns and puts it all into practice.

Alison, wilts, U.k.
 
In July, www.CavalierHealth.org's SM page had a little over 11,000 visits. That website, of course, has a lot more topics than just SM, and visitors tend to brouse through several pages, even if they did not go to the site specifically for the topics they may end up looking at. As for the SM page as the entry page a visitor chooses to come to the entire site, meaning the first page the visitor goes to from search engines or other websites, the SM page had over 2,300 entry page visits last month.

Rod Russell
Orlando, Florida USA
 
That's great! (y)

I am working on my links page and will include it of course.
 
I can't believe all those US club sites are still offering only that old document from the UK club -- it has been ages since that was their own SM info. If people were relying on the clubs alone, no one would have known about the breeding recommendations (well of course no one in the US does know about them except from the independent sites and the UK club site...). Or any of the ongoing research, the genome scan, the published papers..., have seen an MRI, known about possible treatment options, known where MRI clinics are and who the certified neurologists are in a given area... it is extraordinary when you consider how much IS actually known at this point, and how little of this information is given to its membership by the clubs!

This is really concerning; it makes me angry :x too
 
Well done Karlin, I am really glad that people are taking the time to research this horrible disease, even if it is just to help and assist their already affected dogs.

Your SM site is well laid out and easy to read - unlike some info out there. Luckily, I have a background in pharmacy so I'm used to reading medical terminology. I really feel for those people who haven't a clue and are understandably, probably totally lost and frightened when they first find out and are then confronted with lots of poorly written information :(
 
Thanks; a lot of the info out there still is the raw medical abstracts etc which can be really hard to understand. There's a need for all types of info at all levels, depending on who is looking for it. The concern is that the obvious places most people would go to seek information -- whether they are breeders or puppy buyers -- don't have anything or have very little, and much of what they have is outdated (meaning the central club sites). That keeps the awareness level worryingly low amongst breeders in particular, and I know from emails I receive that there's enormous interest from many of them in learning more but they don't know where to go. Because most of the clubs don't make much information available or offer any guidance much less post the fact that there are some suggested breeding guidelines they could consider, that leaves many breeders thinking the problem isn't that important or that it isn't very urgent -- because of course, one looks to the regional and national organisations for leadership. The current situation leaves breeders having to do an awful lot of legwork themselves and doesn't encourage discussion. I hope that will begin to change -- in some cases it's probably just a case of not really having anyone who maintains and updates the website.
 
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