Association website growth continues -- passes 3.8 billion milestone

The cbbqa website has grown rapidly in the last few months and is now among the top websites for barbecue information on the entire Internet.  Since April 2000, when the Association began to redesign its website, the information available on the website has multiplied, many new features have been added, and it has been redesigned with sophisticated coding to make it much easier for visitors to navigate the hundreds of website pages in order to locate the information they need.

3.8 billion bytes

The Association's Board of Directors voted last April to upgrade the website.  In previous months, the website had not been maintained and did not experience significant growth.  Since April, the website has been undergoing an expansion which has led to significant growth.

There are several measures of how many visitors access a website, including the number of "hits" and the number of "bytes sent".  "Hits" measures how many times a website page is accessed.  "Bytes sent" -- which is stated in kilobytes sent and abbreviated "KB sent" -- measures how much information is retrieved from the website by visitors.  Both are useful measures of website visits.

In May 2003, the cbbqa web site passed 3,899,000 KB.

Limited commercial information

Since April, the website growth has been directed at providing visitors with non-commercial barbecue information.  This includes, for example, the BBQ FAQ ("barbecue frequently asked questions"), which is included in a particularly useful form, with a comprehensive index visible from every FAQ page as well as a search engine, which can be used to find particular information within the FAQ and elsewhere on the website.  The website contains other barbecue information that is equally useful.

Now the Association is offering limited commercial information that may be useful to its members and website visitors.  This includes, for example, information about barbecue pits and rigs that are available for sale or even rental by individual owners.  In the past, it has been very difficult for buyers and sellers to locate each other.  The Smokin Times newsletter is distributed only to members, and most barbecue mailings lists prohibit such commercial use.  

Therefore, at the request of many website visitors, the Association will begin to provide this information on its website in a very limited and useful manner.  The Association has established strict guidelines and rates for such ads, so that the website does not become overloaded with commercial ads, like so many other websites.

The Association requests feedback from its members and visitors about these changes.

Related information

• Association website ad rates