Steel search trends

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Gator

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just posted knife steel search trends page.
Considering that knife steel chart is getting quite some use, I've figured it'd be worth doing some statistical analysis. At least to see what were popular searches, etc.
Unfortunately, even though I have masters deg. in math, it's been a very long time since I have had anything to do with statistics, and it's a science on its own. I've started research and it's quite a bit more complicated than I wanted for a hobby project. Although, it's still interesting and I keep researching the subject.
Besides, statistics is an expensive operation in terms of CPU load, and I have to consider that as well.

Still, I did couple primitive stats, and to be honest I was both, surprised and disappointed.

There are two measurements posted for now, top 10 individual alloys and top 10 comparisons for last 7 weeks.
Although, the content of my own pages affects the later. The top comparisons come from the links embedded in the knife steel faq and kitchen knife steel faq. I'm not really decided whether or not to skip the links form my pages for the cleanness of the results, may be I'll keep both.

Disappointing, because there is nothing really interesting in terms of steels. 154Cm, VG-10, etc. I have no clue what's so interesting about 440A to end up on 3rd place. Actually no idea why 154CM/ATS-34 are on the 1st place either. On the other hand, I don't know why I was expecting exotic alloys to be more researched :)

I'll add more statistics later on, if you have any insight into statistical analysis, I'll be happy to hear.
 
Some of those alloys are probably thought of as standards. If I wanted to look up something exotic, I'd want a benchmark for comparison. I might search several common benchmarks to refamiliarize myself before I jump into some exotics.
 
I am inclined to believe that people don't research more exotic and rarer steels because they aren't readily available. The times I have searched your site have been when I want to know the characteristics of a steel not difficult to obtain in order to know whether or not it is a good choice to make a knife. I am guessing most people probably do the same.
 
I'm surprised the top searched steel is only .8% of your searches. That's good news at least; people are checking lots of steels out!
 
Well, like I said I have no clue, surprising result is a result too.
And yes, the fact that top two have less than 1% was also a surprise. There's thousands of searches logged daily, pretty much everything is looked at. Just the sheer amount of data is making complicated to write more sophisticated analysis, or display more alloys.
I think another interesting metric would be to track an interest for a particular alloy during certain period. Not that expensive to implement, but will require adequate user interface to code, and a line graph engine...
 
Disappointing, because there is nothing really interesting in terms of steels. 154Cm, VG-10, etc. I have no clue what's so interesting about 440A to end up on 3rd place. Actually no idea why 154CM/ATS-34 are on the 1st place either. On the other hand, I don't know why I was expecting exotic alloys to be more researched :)

I'll add more statistics later on, if you have any insight into statistical analysis, I'll be happy to hear.

I can't help you on the stats, but you probably have some analytics program to see where hits are coming from that might explain why people search for certain things. I remember the 440 steels coming up on Chowhound every now and then. Isn't Cutco 440a? I have actually searched for those steels a few times on your site after a discussion on Chow, but people often read past posts or an old post gets bumped and you have a new batch of searches. I'd be interested in where your hits are coming from too.

k.

Edit: case in point. Here is a post from Chowhound on Dec 23rd that lists your site and 440a.
 
try grouping your result by stainless and not stainless and then sub divide it.
 
...you probably have some analytics program to see where hits are coming from that might explain why people search for certain things.
Well, yes and no. Web server log analyzer can do little when it comes to interpreting data as actual steel with its properties. Referrers data can be helpful at least in filtering some of the data.
In short normal logs don't help much, and digging them from text logs for the live pages is too costly.
Chowhound is somewhere in 40-50th position as a referrer in general, I suppose steel links also will fall in the same category. Point is, it's gonna be very hard to automate analysis by referrers, as it would require referring page content analysis.

try grouping your result by stainless and not stainless and then sub divide it.
Yeah, I'm considering that (stainless,non stainless) although the division might stir some controversies, like what is exactly stainless and what not...
 
...Yeah, I'm considering that (stainless,non stainless) although the division might stir some controversies, like what is exactly stainless and what not...
What's wrong with that? If that's the sort of controversy that rips apart this community, I'd be amazed. :)
 
Thinking on this today, I came up with a few questions. does your app go to the most seen page? Is this even covering what the app does or is that a whole different ball of wax? (I never dl'd your app. but love the idea.)

Btw I would rather take 10yrs of chem, physics and calculus; and have a enema with a root canal at the same time than take statics again.
 
What's wrong with that? If that's the sort of controversy that rips apart this community, I'd be amazed. :)
Uhmm, people find reasons to get upset for all the silly reasons. You'll be surprised for what reasons some folks get frustrated with my steel chart or knife reviews...
Definition of what is stainless can be debated, 12% Cr or 12% of free Cr or 14... And then it'll be why is that considered stainless and why not. Should "semi-stainless" be its own category or not and so on. I don't think this community will be in danger, but I sure will get enough complaints...

does your app go to the most seen page? Is this even covering what the app does or is that a whole different ball of wax? (I never dl'd your app. but love the idea.)
Do you mean android app? That one doesn't do any statistics and doesn't track user actions at all. can be done, but writing code to upload all that data to the server, and plus privacy issues, etc..
Anyway, stats now are for the web version of the steel chart, so most seen page in the context of the steel search trending would be the info page for a particular steel.

Btw I would rather take 10yrs of chem, physics and calculus; and have a enema with a root canal at the same time than take statics again.
Yeah, that's pretty close how I feel about statistics, but curious, who knows what pattern(s) I might find.
 
Yes that was what I was meaning. I haven't seen the app, but it sounds like you didn't just do a crappy one that sends you to the page in a browser. (thank god) that would then give you a skewed pattern.
 
Yeah, the stats page specifically doesn't have the links to the steels, not to tempt the viewers to click on the top alloys,thus increasing their view count again and influence the results.
 
Uhmm, people find reasons to get upset for all the silly reasons. You'll be surprised for what reasons some folks get frustrated with my steel chart or knife reviews...
Definition of what is stainless can be debated, 12% Cr or 12% of free Cr or 14... And then it'll be why is that considered stainless and why not. Should "semi-stainless" be its own category or not and so on. I don't think this community will be in danger, but I sure will get enough complaints...

Wow, I had no idea there was debate on that since it is defined by the American Iron and Steel Institute.

-AJ
 
Yeah, I had a few complaints about steels listed as stainless along with other things. Plus specs with ranges crossing the thresholds are argued.
No biggie though.
 
Added steel of the day to the stats. At least that shows some variety :) Last night S30V was in the lead till 11pm, then 5160 overtook it. Go figure.
Today so far D2 is the pick of the day...
 
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