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The 2003 study on "FAO's Dissemination and Communication" that reviewed the achievements of the information systems since FAO website was launched, showed that the LEAD Virtual Centre has established itself as one of the most successful web sites, if not the "single" most successful website in FAO. The study analyzed statistics held by an independent firm "WEBTRENDS" from 1994 till May 2003.

For a specialized information system such as the LEAD Virtual Centre the results are overwhelming. Data show that the LEAD Virtual Centre has more visits than entire Divisions and even whole Departments and it is the most popular web site in FAO. The demand for LEAD information is on the increase and judging by the average time that each visitor spends on browsing the Virtual Centre, the quality and quantity of information available in the subject matter is unique.

Since it was launched in October 2001 the number of visits to the LEAD Virtual Centre has increased from 7.000 to 65.000 in May 2003 (These figures do not take into account visits to our Chinese Language Platform since it is in a different domain in China and direct requests to LEAD documents in FAO Document Repository)

According to the number of visits in May 2003, the LEAD Virtual Centre was ranked in fourth place high above web sites of entire Departments and Divisions and other world wide known information systems.

The percentage of change found in the study (133% per month) indicates that the LEAD Virtual Centre demand is on the increase. This is confirmed by the statistics for November 2003, when the number of visits increased up to 78,400. The number of visits per day and the average visit length give a good indication of the quality of the information offered. The “visit” indicator measures the activity of one visitor to a Web site. It is not the number of hits. The “Hit” indicator measure every single action on the Web server as it appears in the log file. For example,  a visitor requesting a Web page including two images registers as three hits on the server. While the volume of hits is an indicator of Web server traffic, it is not an accurate reflection of how many pages are being looked at. The page Views is a better indicator.

In 2004, our average visits per month is 62,200 from January to July and the average visit length has increased to 20 minutes. The statistics indicate a coverage of 123 countries worlwide.

Website Popularity is determined based on how many times an URL is mentioned or referred to on the World Wide Web. This is to say, how many times other sites in the Internet refer, recommend or link to the LEAD Virtual Centre. The 2003 study showed that the LEAD Virtual Centre is the most popular FAO web site with 27,000 references. The second best is the World Agricultural Information Centre with only 5,000 references.

The "Language Platform - Hotspots focus" approach (a multilingual network that share the same resources in a central hub but in which each language platform has a particular thematic focus) is one of the keys for success of the LEAD Virtual Centre. The individual contribution from the platforms (except Chinese and Russian which are fully functional but not yet launched officially) is shown in the following chart.

LEAD Virtual Centre is also well poscioned in the search engines. A search for "livestock and environment" in the main Internet search engines such as Yahoo, Google, Altavista and Hotbot will undoubtedly result in a link to the Virtual Centre as first option or at least one link among the first 10.

It is difficult to judge the success of an information system such as LEAD Virtual Centre by the website statistics, since many activities, such as project design and backstopping, policy assistance, etc. are outside the web domain. The LEAD Virtual Centre is far from reaching a plateau. The tendency is on the increase and the pilot projects are still to be completed so more information and decision support tools can be brought in to satisfy the demand for LEAD products. The existing platforms are starting to consolidate themselves as leaders in their regions and the new platforms are beginning to create a network on livestock and environment issues in their language area. We trust we can continue to count on your support.