My form has become inneffective

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My form has become inneffective

as my traffic has grown

Powdork

7:52 am on Jul 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

My site has become very successful:)
My contact form has dropped to almost 0 submissions per day.
For several months the use of the form has grown along with the traffic. Recently there has been a spike in traffic due to move to number 1 for important phrase on Google. Not only has the traffic, while very related, not brought a rise in the use of the contact form, but actual submissions have dropped. There have been no traffic sectors that have dropped that could explain this.
Today, there were twenty visits to the contact page. There were no visits to the thankyou page. There were three POST's but all hit the back button before the form submisssion completed (in about 8 seconds each time).
The only change has been the increase in traffic, but there are no bandwidth concerns.
Every time I use the form from whatever browser, it works fine. I have a fast connection though.
Any ideas?

le_gber

8:24 am on Jul 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

Is there any way to make the submit of your past faster?

Take WebmasterWorld for example, it only takes 1/2 a sec to a sec. If I submit a form and nothing happend after 3-5 sec I go back and see why it didn't work

Leo

Powdork

8:37 am on Jul 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

The eight seconds I mentioned seems like a terribly long time. When I submit my forms (even after deleting my cache, clearing history,etc) it takes not time. In fact it is generally quicker than WW. I'm usually trying it at this time of night and the unsuccessful submissions were all during peak periods.

It is my first form, though.

The puzzling thing is "Why the drop in submissions?' From an average of five per day to one with a doubling of relevant traffic.

tedster

9:41 am on Jul 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

I agree, that is puzzling because you say you didn't lose any traffic sources. I can understand that doubling traffic might not double response but you're saying something a bit different than that.

I would not be too concerned right now, because the sample size is relatively small, both in time and numbers of submissions. The change is recent, you said, and you're not talking about a drop from a really big number. This is a major holiday/vacation period and I always see a number of shifts around this part of the summer.

Since you've checked everything you mention, I'd say patience may be the needed ingredient. But in the mean time, look for some people to test the site for you and make any enhancements that come to light.

peewhy

10:34 am on Jul 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

This may sound stupid but have you double checked your code for a slight glitch and/or ask your host if there is a server side problem?

Powdork

4:47 pm on Jul 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

This may sound stupid but have you double checked your code for a slight glitch and/or ask your host if there is a server side problem?

That doesn't sound stupid. I've validated the html. Just the usual errors about no alt text for spacer.gif. I don't know if that checks the form. The form itself is an unmodified version of the host's formmail.pl. Do forms and tables or nested tables conflict?
The page is like this
<body
<FORM ACTION = "/cgi-sys/formmail.pl" METHOD = "POST" name="RequestInfo">
input types
<table
<table
Text fields
</table>
checkboxes (30) and submit buttons
</table>
</form>

Tedster,
Do you usually see a drop if it is a summer vacation type widget? Or as you approach a deadline of sorts would people tend to go to the vendors directly rather than use the form?

rcjordan

4:54 pm on Jul 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

Have you added content that, in effect, answers all of their questions?

AWildman

5:04 pm on Jul 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

Have you checked your mail's error bin for undelivered mail? Recently, I had a problem where mail sent from a certain server was not being sent cause someone had messed with the dns.

tedster

6:27 pm on Jul 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

The form itself is an unmodified version of the host's formmail.pl.

I once had a p[roblem because the host had changed their perl installation and somehow or other I never got the word to update until formmail.pl started throwing problems for me. If you're seeing zero, I'd get the host involved. If you are seeing a few, then maybe not.

Do you usually see a drop if it is a summer vacation type widget? Or as you approach a deadline of sorts would people tend to go to the vendors directly rather than use the form?

My B2B clients often see a drop beginning the end of June as vacations start and authorizations for purchase get slowed down within companies.

My B2C clients also see a drop in early summer -- my theory is that during the first part of summer people are less inclined toward online shopping and more inclined toward outdoor stuff. This usually evens out by mid July, but every year at least one client panics at the volume drop and I need to show them the same month figures for last year to bring some relaxation.

Not sure about your last question - I probably don't have anything parallel to the business model you're running there.

Powdork

6:50 pm on Jul 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

Maybe this is it.
Mardi_Gras just helped me out by submitting. (Thanks)
When he did it the results were instantaneous, as when I have done it. The successful tries result in
POST /cgi-sys/formmail.pl HTTP/1.1" 302
while the unsuccessful replies were
POST /cgi-sys/formmail.pl HTTP/1.1" 200
The 200 response shows they were not redirected to the thankyou page. Does this happen for other reasons besides user error (leaving required fields blank, etc.)?