UAF Web Traffic Spikes Following Alaska Quakes

Submitted by Carla Browning
Phone: (907) 474-7778
11/15/02

When the magnitude 7.9 earthquake rumbled and rattled through Alaska on Nov. 3, many people didn’t run for cover as much as they ran to the Internet.

That’s the impression left by the number of visits, called "hits" by computer experts, to websites at the University of Alaska Fairbanks offering information about the state’s earthquakes.

Visits to the website run by the Alaska Earthquake Information Center, located at the UAF Geophysical Institute, increased dramatically in the days after the Nov. 3 temblor. The site offers up-to-date information about earthquakes throughout Alaska and the world, as well as links to sites that provide safety and preparedness tips.

"We went from under 20,000 hits the day before the quake to nearly 480,000 hits on Nov. 3 and 800,000 hits the day after," said Mitch Robinson, senior program analyst at the university’s earthquake center.

Internet traffic to the Alaska Earthquake Information Center was so heavy, Robinson said he had to increase the site’s ability to handle simultaneous hits to keep up with the flow. For nine days following the quake, hits to the center’s web page stayed well above 100,000 per day.

It was also busy at the Alaska Earthquake and Tsunami website run by the Alaska Sea Grant College Program at UAF. The day before the quake struck, just 34 hits were recorded on the site’s home page. In the hours following the temblor, nearly 1,600 hits were recorded.

The university doesn’t track individuals accessing UAF websites, but it does monitor traffic volume to its sites. The UAF web server hosts in excess of 137,000 documents and web pages and receives an average of 1.2 million "hits" per month to these pages. Sophisticated computer software also allows university web managers to see what links people followed to arrive at a particular UAF page. In the case of the Alaska Earthquake and Tsunami site, most people found the site through a link on the Alaska Earthquake Information Center home page. Others arrived at the site after using one of several Internet search engines.

Similar increases in UAF website activity were observed following the magnitude 6.7 earthquake that rocked central Alaska Oct. 23, near to where the Nov. 3 quake occurred. The day of the October quake, the Alaska Earthquake Information Center logged 348,000 hits.

Earthquake Information on the web at:
GI Alaska Earthquake Information Center

Alaska Sea Grant Earthquake and Tsunami Web site

Alaska Science Forum featuring the Denali Fault

USGS National Earthquake Information Center

Contact: Doug Schneider, information officer, Alaska Sea Grant College Program, (907) 474-7449, fndgs@uaf.edu; Mitch Robinson, senior program analyst, Geophysical Institute, (907) 474-7440, mitch@giseis.alaska.edu; Carol Kaynor, web manager, Alaska Sea Grant College Program, (907) 474-6705.