The top TT riders are heading for the Isle of Man for the launch of the 2013 TT Races fuelled by Monster Energy and you can follow the event wherever you are in the world.

The leading riders will all be appearing at the free Fan Party hosted by Manx Radio TT's Chris Kinley and Tim Glover, which kicks off at 7.30pm at the Villa Marina on Wednesday 10th April.

This is your chance to hear the thoughts of all of the top riders as they get ready for this year's TT; from John McGuinness as he looks to add to his 19 race wins through to Australian Josh Brookes who will be taking part in his first TT. Other riders who will feature in the evening include race winners Bruce Anstey, Gary Johnson, Ian Lougher and Honda TT Legends team-mates Michael Rutter and Michael Dunlop while Cameron Donald is scheduled to link up live from Australia.

You'll also get to hear from Dan Stewart, Conor Cummins, William Dunlop, Dean Harrison, Dan and Ryan Kneen and Simon Andrews while newcomers Horst Saiger, AJ Venter and the Isle of Man's Gav Hunt will be sharing their thoughts on tackling the TT Mountain Course for the first time.

The sidecars will also be represented with 16 time champion Dave Molyneux and passenger Patrick Farrance heading the field. You'll also get the chance to get insights from current World sidecar champion Tim Reeves and his passenger Dan Sayle, and 2012 TT race winner John Holden and Andy Winkle.

However, if you can't get to the Isle of Man you can still follow the event live via the iomtt.com website, which will be broadcasting the whole launch from the Villa Marina. It will also be broadcast live via Manx Radio and through the stations on-line service. You can also tweet your questions to the riders on the night to @iom_tt and presenter Chris Kinley will ask the best ones on the night.

Anyone lucky enough to be on the Isle of Man can also meet the riders in Douglas at the Motorsport Merchandise store on Strand Street at 5pm on Tuesday 9th April where they will be signing autographs at the launch of the 2013 TT Merchandise collection - your chance to bag an early souvenir including the launch of new limited edition TT 2013 posters featuring new unique artwork of the leading TT stars.

However, if all of this isn't enough you can still buy tickets to the 'TT Launch - Access All Areas', package which offers exclusive behind the scenes access at the launch including the opportunity to meet the riders behind the scenes at the official media launch during the day on Wednesday 10th April. The day will include breakfast reception, the chance to be pictured with all of the leading riders at a secret location as well as lunch. You'll then be transported back to the Villa Marina for an evening buffet with the riders followed by reserved seating at the public launch event. Tickets are available at £200 plus VAT from www.iomtt.com or official ticket and travel agency Regency Travel on 01624 694456.

Actor and Producer, Adrien Brody, was recently photographed on his Ducati Monster 1100 EVO in Los Angeles.

The 40-year-old passionate motorcycling New Yorker, who won an “Oscar” Academy Award for his role in the 2002 film, The Pianist, was riding a version of the Ducati model styled in co-operation with fashion brand Diesel.

The 2013 customised model is an ‘urban military chic’ interpretation of Ducati’s iconic naked motorcycle with an exclusive ‘Diesel Brave Green matte’ livery aligning with Diesel’s dedicated apparel collection.

Of Their £4.2 Million Upgrade - Grey Power Helps Move Over 1000 Tons Of Motor Vehicles In 14 Hours

The Haynes International Motor Museum opened Phase One of its multi million pound upgrade in time for the Good Friday crowds.

Seventeen volunteers with an average age of 72 years old moved exhibition material, 187 cars and motorcycles with a combined weight of over 1000 tons in a little over 14 hours.  The oldest volunteer was 84 years old Derek Ayres and the youngest 54 year old Alan Goddard.

The exhibition organisation was effectively a giant tile puzzle, which had to be completed on time to avoid disappointing the Easter crowds.  Museum volunteers, despite their advancing years proved to be more than equal to the job.

The new Black Box exhibition, with the Vroom Room – a high performance car exhibition from all ages and countries forms the heart of phase one of the development.  Other areas including the American collection, micro cars and custom cars are amongst other new interpretations waiting to be enjoyed.

Phase two and three of the museum redevelopment will be completed over the coming nine months and will completely transform this iconic museum bringing its exhibition into the 21st century, much enhancing its appeal as one of the world’s premier motor museums.

Next on the schedule for completion is Haynes Hatch the children’s electric go-kart race track which forms the final part of the new Haynes Motorland a £250,000 play area where children can experience all types of vehicle related fun.

www.haynesmotormuseum.co.uk

Following his dismissal from a job he never should have had, Kevin Turner packs a tent, some snacks, and a suit, and sets out on a two-wheeled adventure across Europe.

With no idea where he's going, and only two very large and confusing maps to rely on, he heads out to prove that planning and forethought are the very antithesis of a motorcycle adventure.

Bonjour! Is This Italy? A Hapless Biker’s Guide to Europe, offers a unique and often hilarious insight into the challenges and excitement afforded by a lone motorcycle journey though Europe. In his quest to escape the frantic nature of London life, Kevin Turner heads south across France, crossing the Alps into Italy, and onto Rome, before returning via Germany - and the treacherous Nürburgring - in the hope of rendezvousing with the beautiful Nina.

Throughout, the author provides valuable advice to those considering a similar journey, noting the best and most scenic routes, where to stay, and what to see.

This is interspersed with a raft of comic anecdotes that demonstrate exactly what NOT to do when lost on a motorbike in Europe.  

A must read for anyone who has ever toured on a bike, with many laugh-out-loud moments! (THE BIKER GUIDE)

For more information and contact details, please visit www.haplessbiker.com

What is the difference between hits and visitors?
 
It is a common mistake and in some cases, one which is used to misguide you into thinking that a website has more actual people looking on the website than there actually is.
 
There is a lot of terminologies that are quoted by the SEO Professional and sales people, trying to get you to place a listing on their website, and some unscrupulous people (and goodness knows, there's plenty of those around!) will be quite happy to take advantage of your ignorance of the terms they are using.
 
A clever (and dishonest) sales person or SEO specialist will proudly proclaim, "We will get you a thousand hits per day," trusting that you are unaware of what that actually means. A non-savvy website owner will think to himself, "Wow! A thousand visitors per day! That's a lot!"

But here's the trick. Let's say your home page has a header image, 5 menu images, a couple other pictures somewhere on the page, plus a style sheet that gets called by the page. That works out to a total of 10 hits per page: the page itself, the style sheet, and eight images.

Now let's suppose that your site is interesting and well designed, so every visitor who comes to it sticks around long enough to read five pages. That's a total of 50 hits per visitor.

So when the SEO company brags that they're going to get your 1000 hits per day, they really mean that they're going to give you 20 visitors per day.

All of a sudden their promises don't seem so golden, do they?
 
What is important

Simple... The number of visitors to the site, and to be pedantic, not just the visitor, but the  unique visitor.
 
What is a Hit, Visitor and the Unique Visitor?
 
A "hit" is counted every single time your website sends a page or graphic to a visitor. So, if one visitor looks at your homepage, that counts as one hit. If your homepage links to nine graphics - logos, photographs etc. - that counts as nine more "hits", giving a total of 10 hits overall. If your visitor leaves your site at this point without looking at any more pages, they have still registered 10 "hits" - this means that hits alone don't give you a very clear idea about how popular your website is. 

A visitor is every time a person (computer terminal) visits your website.
 
A unique visitor is how many times that person (computer terminal) visits your website.
 
Counters

The problem with using counters to track visitors is they are set up to measure page views, not unique visitors. Every time someone views your page, whether it's the first time or the twentieth, that visitor is counted. And if the page times out for some reason and they "Reload," it counts them again. And if someone just wants to have fun with your counter, they can exit and enter the site several times and are counted as a visitor each time... even if they never look at product.

So if you cannot count hits and you cannot use a counter, how do you track the traffic on your site?
 
Install visitor tracking code on your website, such as Google Analytics (see link in Resources at the bottom).
 
A web traffic analysis program will give you vital information about the traffic coming to your site, including where visitors are coming from, including which keywords they used, which search engines, what countries they are situated in, what paths your visitors are taking whilst on the website and which pages are the main exit points of your site... In fact it is full of all sorts of information... and for Google Analytics it is free.
 
This information is private and only available to you, the account owner. It is best to install the tracking code as soon as possible to start building history. If you are using Google Adwords (you pay to advertise your website) or Google Adsense (you place advertising on your website for profit) then you may already have access to Google Analytics.
 
How do I find out how many visitors a website gets if I am not the owner?
 
There are many cases where you may not be the website owner, but want to find out how well another website performs. However, since you do not own the site then you will not be able to see the full-blown traffic stats displayed by Google Analytics. Now it is time to do some investigation...
 
You may be curious about how much traffic any website generates, or you want to find out how well your competitor's website is performing. The first place to go is TrafficEstimate which is free (see link in Resources at the bottom). Search for a website address to see the estimated number of visitors to the site in the last 30 days, along with a simple graph. Keep in mind that the estimator tool is just that, an estimate, however at least you can get a ballpark figure. An interesting graph is shown for facebook.com which sees a steady climb in traffic and visitors, however more recently by comparing the two you can see that the visitors are spending a longer amount of time on the website.

Alexa is the top web information authority which is also free (see link in Resources at the bottom). Search for a website address and see how a website ranks compared to all other websites in the world. 

You can search for any website address that you are interested in finding its traffic rank. Alexa also provides other neat graphs and handy info. Although it does not show you the exact number of visitors, you can get a general idea of the website's performance. By comparing the traffic rank of your website to your competitor's website, you can estimate who gets more traffic. For example, YouTube.com ranks higher than Weather.com. Please note, although this is another great tools to use they are sometimes a bit behind with keywords and the amount of links, linked in.
 
THE BIKER GUIDE summing up...
 
We hope this article will help understand the difference between hits and visitors and hopefully to help you choose wisely where you place any advertising or your business on the World Wide Web!
 
If you would like any further advise of hits, visitors and anything else included in this information, do not hesitate to ask.
 
If you already knew all of the above, please accept our apologies and welcoming you to our world of seo geekness!

• Google Analytics www.google.com/analytics
• Google Adwords www. Google.co.uk/ AdWords
• TrafficEstimate www.trafficestimate.com
• Alexa www.alexa.com

THE BIKER GUIDE
 
Bringing the Biker Community together!
 
www.thebikerguide.co.uk
 
 PS: Did you know when someone is quoting a site ranking of 1 that is 1 out of 10!