Comments on: oh, the places blogs’ll go

By: Tony Restell

Tony Restell — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 12:37:05 +0000

Joel – unfortunately both Alexa and Hitwise are similarly flawed. They are useful tools if used with caution, but very often their input data can be a bigger contributor to the differences you see in the charts than any actual differences between the sites.

Take ourselves and e-consultancy.com; a year ago we shared our respective UV data as we were really surprised these services were reporting e-consultancy to be considerably bigger than ourselves. Sharing UV data proved to us both that this wasn’t the case.

Their traffic is predominantly independent consultants, contractors and people working in small businesses – all of whom use ISPs who are potential contributors to services like Hitwise. Our own visitors are almost entirely from corporate domains (Accenture, IBM, etc) and so this data is not shared with the types of organisations that produce these comparison stats. They’re also unlikely to be allowed to have the Alexa toolbar installed. Hence the fact that we have a readership reach into these types of organisations counts against us with these comparison sites – even though from a recruitment advertising perspective it’s a positive thing that we have this reach.

So my original comment – and this one too – is just to warn advertisers against reading too much into these types of comparison services. You could end up allocating your $$s to sites that don’t have anything like the traffic reach that you thought…

Tony

By: Joel Cheesman

Joel Cheesman — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 17:11:43 +0000

Thanks, Tony … if you know of anything better that’s publicly available, please let us know.

By: Tony Restell

Tony Restell — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 14:29:44 +0000

Am shocked to see Compete.com data being presented as anything like reality. It’s no more reliable than Alexa, perhaps less so. Our own site has ~200,000 unique visitors a month and Compete has just estimated us at less than 5,000!! I’d therefore be careful about drawing any conclusions about the respective readerships of sites from either service…

Great work asides from this though, been an avid reader now for a good year or more. Tony

By: Susan Burns

Susan Burns — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 14:23:02 +0000

I agree that Blogs create value that can be measured through the traffic they drive to their site. And, in many instances, but not all, there is a credible voice providing valuable info – like Cheezhead. Why do people read blogs and gravitate towards one over another? Because they feel a relationship with the blogger! Take this corporate and the experience, trust and value will be diluted. As you mention with Jason’s Recruiting.com – its never been the same. There will certainly be buyouts and successes but, as example, Cheezhead would not be Cheezhead without the head Cheez! Sure, companies can drive traffic – but will it be the same – definitely not! Where will the original voice go? My guess – after a long Carribbean vacation….off to the next new, new thing and the cycle will be anew!

By: jason davis

jason davis — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 02:40:01 +0000

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked.
A place you could sprain both you elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?

By: David Manaster

David Manaster — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 19:56:43 +0000

Good talk just now Joel. As I’ve been saying for a while on my blog, and just demonstrated to you with ERE’s actual server statistics privately, both Compete and Alexa are WAY off.

I do agree with your larger point though – blogs have arrived. More accurately, SOME blogs have arrived. The vast majority of them will never be consistently interesting enough to attract a large enough following to really be attractive acquisition candidates.