First of all, any member who is online is almost always logged in. You'd either have to be on a new computer, delete your cookies, or manually log out every time you visit. That count is of how many different people have a session on the site. So it's the number of people on in the past 20 minutes (that's how long it takes for a session to timeout. websites don't keep an active connection between the user and the site, so there's no way to know when the person actually leaves). It doesn't matter if the user is a member or not, either. So a large chunk of that number is made up of people who are visiting from search engines like Google. BA's online count works the same way (their count says "users", not "members").

Speaking of BA, you now have to be a member to use their search function. Dogs. I won't be using their site until bugmenot.com lists an id and password to use. I'm now 100% Beerpal vs. 85%.

quote: Originally posted by eaglefan538 I'm now 100% Beerpal

That's what I like to see! Actually, there's nothing wrong with checking out the other sites. I'm a member on more than one site, myself. I like to see what's going on, you know? But you provide a nice testimony about the benefit of the BeerPal way of thinking. Thanks for that.

quote: Originally posted by FoamDome That's what I like to see! Actually, there's nothing wrong with checking out the other sites. I'm a member on more than one site, myself. I like to see what's going on, you know? But you provide a nice testimony about the benefit of the BeerPal way of thinking. Thanks for that.

Yup. I frequent a few others sometimes. BP has always been #1 (better "community"), while the others have been good cross references in many cases. 384 (what I'm seeing right now) BP's online does indeed seem way higher than usual, though (which is normally under 200, closer to 100-150).