# Notable spikes, dips and breaks over time (partial answer) The dataset does have a time dimension, and the yearly view shows a large structural break from 2023 onward. I only examined the yearly rollup and a few website-by-year rows, so I did not look at monthly, daily or hourly patterns. ## Yearly totals (2014–2024) | Year | Rows | Page views | Unique views | Entrances | Avg bounce % | Avg exit % | |---|---|---|---|---|---|---| | 2014 | 3,234 | 3.37M | 2.27M | 1.07M | 23.2 | 31.0 | | 2015 | 5,161 | 4.15M | 2.76M | 1.57M | 19.9 | 27.6 | | 2016 | 6,888 | 4.67M | 3.20M | 2.51M | 19.8 | 28.7 | | 2017 | 6,115 | 3.63M | 2.53M | 6.66M | 17.0 | 29.3 | | 2018 | 5,481 | 4.45M | 2.03M | 9.55M | 25.4 | 37.0 | | 2019 | 5,014 | 6.81M | 2.75M | 14.15M | 23.9 | 33.3 | | 2020 | 4,863 | 7.95M | 4.31M | 15.73M | 25.3 | 35.6 | | 2021 | 5,303 | 8.14M | 4.32M | 21.87M | 21.2 | 32.1 | | 2022 | 4,100 | 11.05M | 4.22M | 19.59M | 16.6 | 26.2 | | 2023 | 7,145 | 317.93M | 81.55M | 199.19M | 4.2 | 5.9 | | 2024 | 9,192 | 621.80M | 146.38M | 347.88M | 0.20 | 0.26 | ## Main findings 1. **Huge spike in 2023, and more in 2024.** - Page views rose from 11.05M in 2022 to 317.93M in 2023, about 29 times higher. - They then roughly doubled again to 621.80M in 2024. - Unique views and entrances jump in the same way. Entrances went from 19.6M to 199.2M in 2023 and 347.9M in 2024. - The row count rose far less (4,100 → 7,145 → 9,192), so the jump is mostly in per-row values, not in the number of records. 2. **Bounce and exit rates collapse at the same time.** - Average bounce rate fell from 16.6% in 2022 to 4.2% in 2023 and 0.20% in 2024. - Average exit rate fell from 26.2% to 5.9% and then 0.26%. - A change this abrupt, in step with the volume jump, looks more like a change in tracking or data collection than a real shift in visitor behavior. That is an inference; I did not confirm the cause. 3. **Source of the 2023 spike.** - www.brla.gov in 2023 had 80.5M page views over 3,346 rows. Its maximum single-row value was 17.56M, against a median of 101. - The same site in 2020 had 2.6M page views and a maximum of 252K. - A few extreme rows therefore drive much of the 2023 total. - I did not break down the other websites for 2023, so I cannot say whether www.brla.gov accounts for all of the spike. At 80.5M of 317.9M page views, it explains only about a quarter of it. 4. **New source in 2024.** - data.brla.gov appears with 4,834 rows and 8.77M page views in 2024. - Its bounce rate averages 0.15% and its exit rate 0.21%, which fits the near-zero 2024 averages. - The query that returned this row was filtered, so I have not confirmed whether the site existed in earlier years. 5. **Entrances grow out of line with page views in 2017–2021.** - Entrances rose from 2.51M in 2016 to 6.66M in 2017 and reached 21.87M in 2021. - Page views in the same period stayed between 3.6M and 8.1M. - Entrances exceeding page views is unusual and suggests a change in how entrances are counted. For example, 2021 had 21.87M entrances against 8.14M page views. 6. **Smaller movements.** - 2014 is the lowest year, at 3.37M page views. - Page views dipped in 2017 to 3.63M, from 4.67M in 2016. - Unique views dipped in 2018 to 2.03M, even though page views rose that year. - Bounce and exit rates rose in 2018 to 25.4% and 37.0%. ## Caveats - The data looks like one row per page per period, summed up to year. I did not confirm what a row represents. - I did not examine the monthly, daily or hourly grains, so I cannot say when within 2023 the spike began or whether it was gradual or sudden. - Whether the 2023–2024 jump reflects real traffic, bot traffic, or a measurement or platform change remains unresolved. - The data does not cover 2013 or earlier. The year-level rows may also be incomplete for some years, which I did not check.