Day: November 7, 2004

Blog Traffic Apples and Oranges

Glenn and Prof. Bainbridge point to a downright interesting report on CNN Money regarding blog traffic.
Allen Wastler provides a chart, apparently using data from comScore Networks, which provides the following trafic statistics for “number of daily visitors” for various blogs on Election Day:
Blogspot.com: 333,000
Typepad.com: 95,000
DailyKos: 86,000
Wonkette: 31,000
A few observations:
From their methodology page, I gather that comScore is coming up with their figures by using a panel of web users and surveying their surfing habits, then extrapolating that behavior to the web universe as a whole.
So, first, we should recognize that their number will not necessarily sync directly with SiteMeter Average Daily Visits, which is our usual metric of choice around these parts.
Second, given their methodology, I suspect that what comScore is reporting is not the total number of visits per day, but the number of unique visitors. Taken in that light, the idea that Kos had 86,000 people who checked his blog throughout the day doesn’t seem too far off base. Since his average daily visits count was around 600,000 at that time, each person would need to check seven times during the day for his total daily visits to amount to 600,000. For a major news day like election day, that doesn’t sound like an unreasonable rate.
At any rate, I have no way of verifying whether comScore’s data is accurate or complete bunk. But, I think we should be careful in comparing comScore’s apples to SiteMeter’s oranges…

MT 3.1 Upgrade in progress

I’m about to upgrade to Moveable Type 3.1, so please dismiss any random wonkiness you see on the site until further notice….
Update: This is a test… how’s it look?
Update 2: Well, it seems to have gone rather smoothly. Please report any oddities you notice here…

Ecosystem Flashback: May 2004 vs. Today

Michelle Malkin posts this morning on in the blogosphere, pointing out that contrary to conventional wisdom, there is actual change in the top ranked blogs over time.
With Michelle’s post prompting me, I decided to reach back into the Ecosystem’s historical database and check out what the Top 30 (“Higher Beings” and “Mortal Humans”) looks like today as compared to six months ago (May 7, 2004).
Here’s the result:

Blog November Rank May Rank
Instapundit.com 1 1
Daily Kos 2 3
Talking Points Memo 3 2
DRUDGE REPORT 2004 4 10
Power Line 5 71
Boing Boing 6 16
lgf: put your foot on the rock 7 9
Eschaton 8 4
www.AndrewSullivan.com 9 5
The Washington Monthly 10 14
The Corner 11 15
Wizbang 12 37
Blogs For Bush 13 23
The Command Post 14 40
The Volokh Conspiracy 15 7
Captain’s Quarters 16 NA
Slashdot 17 22
Michelle Malkin 18 NA
Dean’s World 19 17
a small victory 20 8
JoeUser.com 21 303
Lileks 22 12
The New Republic Online: etc. 23 13
Tim Blair 24 24
Belmont Club 25 79
Matthew Yglesias 26 18
Vodkapundit 27 30
RealClearPolitics 28 139
IMAO 29 19
Wonkette 30 56

Blogs highlighted in green were not in the Top 30 in May, but are now.
So of the current Top 30, nine blogs weren’t there six months ago — just under one third. That certainly isn’t a monolithic and static list — it shows quite significant turnover, really.
In case you are curious, the reason I didn’t do this comparison by Traffic rankings is that I only started capturing historical data for traffic about a month ago. But going forward, I’ll be able to provide interesting historical reports on traffic, as well as links.
Update: Corrected to show that Matt Yglesias was ranked in the Top 30 in May 2004 as well as November.