Today some random thoughts about GreatBirdPics.com that have been bouncing around in my head:
Pageviews
One Pageview (you see it as Views on each photo’s Information Page) is tallied every time someone views one of the Great Bird Pics (15,576 shared and counting) our members have shared and once in a while I go to the site’s Dashboard and take a peek at the Pageviews for those pictures. I click on the Pageviews header and it sorts the number of Pageviews from highest to lowest and I was surprised recently because pictures that were submitted between February 13 – 20, 2026 each tallied 2,400 – 2,220 pageviews! This waaaaay above the typical number and I have no idea who or what was viewing your photographs. I continued to scroll back until December of last year I found many photographs had 250 to 550 pageviews (again, higher than usual). So don’t get discouraged if you share one of your pictures and after a few days you see that it has 12 Views – give it some time and perhaps it will be “discovered” by the Internet. The picture below by Bajadreamer has the highest number of Views – 2,347 – as of May 26, 2026.
Attacks on Websites = $
You might recall back in October my website host Appnet (who also built the site to my specifications) contacted me about upgrading the site’s protection package because of a dramatic uptick in malicious attacks on websites worldwide. I declined the offer and was allowed to continue at the regular hosting rate. About a month ago I received another notice from Appnet stating that the regular hosting rate was no longer available and I had a week to move GreatBirdPics.com to another host or continue at ten times the regular hosting rate. Talk about a gun being put to my head! Their logic was that malicious attacks continued to escalate and the only way to protect the sites they hosted was to apply enhanced security software to all the websites on their equipment.
I launched GreatBirdPics.com as a retirement “hobby” and there was a reasonable cost to having the site hosted by Appnet for the past five years. When the costs increased tenfold I had to think long and hard about continuing or shutting down GreatBirdPics.com. My conclusion was that I greatly value my relationships with our members. I enjoy viewing each and every Great Bird Pic you share. I like hearing your responses to my questions about “Which One…” and how to improve a photograph. I appreciate the positive responses to my posts. GreatBirdPics.com has become more than a “hobby” for me – it has allowed me to develop relationships with like-minded bird photographers from around the world. Thanks to all of you – you make it worth it!
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