News 2/6/2019 - Reflecting on 2018 and moving forward in 2019!

We hope that this message finds you well in the new year of 2019!

Let me start off by referring you to our year-end message from 2017 going into 2018:
https://tokyoadultguide.com/threads/reflecting-on-2017-and-looking-ahead-to-2018.17831/

This yearly posting is fairly late compared to previous years, very sorry about that! It has been a whirlwind around here and we have all been very busy since late fall 2018. We have barely had time to stop and take a breath, except for a small break over the Christmas & New Year's break. It was time to take a break from Japan and see the rest of the world for a few weeks!

Now that the dust has settled, we find ourselves already into early February and time is marching on quicker than ever. For 2018, we saw a fairly static year with expected growth and stability across all areas of TAG. We are still aiming to keep a low profile and focus on what we do best, collect and publish content that is of use to our readers who are either regular members or just those passing by looking for a quick piece of information.

Last year, we begun the ground work for the transition to release TAG X3 which is essentially TAG v3.0 - you are currently using what's considered to be TAG v2.5 which has aged significantly since going live in 2009. Some site components are relics of the past and we have been working to retire the remaining ancient pieces so that we can make a clean move to TAG X3. We have a small group of beta testers who have been cruising around the test site currently operating but we are still at only about 50% completion. The good news, however, is that all old tech has been flushed out completely. We still have a a laundry list of things to do and as I stated elsewhere, nearly 3 pages of to-do items in my trusty notebook. I won't commit to a completion date just yet, but I'd like to have it done before we get too close to the late spring time frame.

We continue to take an aggressive approach to content control. We have been the target of some fairly nasty threats and attempted public shaming. However, our rules in place to prevent what was happening ~10-12 years ago. We refuse to backslide into the dark ages and just have a free-for-all situation going on.

That said, the absolute majority of our readers and members contribute good information and we deeply appreciate the back channel support offered by various folks to help keep accurate information flowing.

We respect those who offer constructive, well written recommendations and critiques. The barrage of offensive material needs to stop. We understand trolling, which is just a part of the internet world, we're all good for a little fun here and there. However, if you're reading an ADULT site, please act like one. (I cannot believe I have to actually say this....)

Advertising packages are available to qualified* agencies and providers. We will keep ads limited, but please keep in mind - we don't accept or promote sponsored articles, reviews, images, videos or affiliate links. We do not accept any written content to be placed within TAG that is what we consider to be paid content. Banner Ads, Independent Ads - all fine.

Anyway - Thank you to all of our regular members and even our lurkers who are out there. Don't be shy, join up and get your word in on the discussions!

Thank you also to all of the wonderful people that I've been able to connect with in personal meetings here in Tokyo. Most of you were truly enjoyable to meet.... All of you except one!

You can see some basic statistics that we will share with you today that represents a simple view of our stats for 2018.

During 2018 there were 60.2 Million Pages Served* across 105.3 Million Hits*, Reaching approximately 1.5 Million Viewers*. Our bounce rate for visitors reached 8.64% compared to the 2017 figure of 16.78% a 50% decrease, which was a surprise to us. Average time spent on on TAG per visitor, increased by 11.45% to an average of 8 minutes 9 seconds.

Visits By Type:

2016 Returning Visitor: 37.7%
2017 Returning Visitor: 36.7%
2018 Returning Visitor: 50.1%

2016 New Visitor: 62.3%
2017 New Visitor: 63.3%
2018 New Visitor: 49.9%

*Stats above have been processed with our best effort to weed out bots and other non-human viewers. Stats are statistically analyzed using raw log files from our DWH and data collected in our analytics software package.

General Site Statistics for Content:

You will notice some regressions in some content areas for 2018 - this was a result of excluding content that was removed from public view and we decided that it should NOT count towards the total aggregate data reports that we perform.