We’ve noticed a drop is usage of Aspire over the last academic year.

 

While investigating I came across something interesting, referrals from Google dropped 99% between the two academic years. In fact since May 2013 they have basically dropped to zero

 

See: http://imgur.com/5lmdqRY

 

It seems that when Google shows a page from our Aspire site in the results, it provides a direct link to the actual resource – and not to Aspire - and often recognises it as a bibliographic citation (e.g. shows citation count in search results).

 

e.g.

https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=texts+in+time+site:liblists.sussex.ac.uk

 

Another example (only some of the results from Aspire)

https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=Relational+Aesthetics+London+Review+of+Books+site%3Asussex.ac.uk

 

Note for both searches I restricted the search to our domain, simply for ease of using them as examples here.

 

I haven't seen the behaviour before (but then it seems most days I see new stuff appear in Google Searches).

It doesn’t seem like a bad thing, random global web users go straight to the article/item rather than what is, probably for them, a random University website.

And if they are by chance users of ours, then they too are saved a click, though I don’t see ezproxy in the URL which may lead to authentication issues.

 

However this may be something to be aware of when looking at usage stats;  looking at overall usage, 42,000 less user sessions sounds like a concern, until you realise they can be accounted for due to this.

 

Chris

 

Chris Keene  - Technical Development Manager, University of Sussex Library
Contact: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/150000