nz blogosphere rankings: November 2009 summary
NZ blogosphere November 2009 survey has been released - this is the summary.Changes from last month (October) in brackets.
Top 100:
[+] significant ranking moves up:
#5 (+7) Gotcha!
#24 (+12) Poneke
#37 (+29) The Persuader
#39 (61+) Knowledge Workers
#51 (+14) Radical cross stitch
#56 (+18) Quote Unquote
#59 (+16) Mars 2 Earth
#72 (28+) Greenpeace NZ blog
#75 (25+) Star Studded Super Step
#76 (+21) Monkeys with Typewriters
#77 (+13) Media Law Journal
#78 (+20) BK Drinkwater
#86 (14+) Object Dart
[-] significant ranking moves down:
#32 (-9) New Zeal
#65 (-15) Eye of the Fish
#68 (-12) John Key
#74 (-32) Hitting Metal
#79 (-20) Auckland blog
#84 (-16) True Paradigm
#89 (-21) Bat, Bean, Beam
#92 (-37) G.blog
[Posts] Average per week:
140 (-) Whoar
60 (+15) Standard
55 (-) Home Paddock
50 (-20) Kiwiblog
45 (-5) Red Alert
45 (+10) Fairfacts
25 (-) TUMEKE!
25 (-) No Right Turn
25 (-) Not PC
25 (+5) No Minister
20 (-) Frogblog
20 (-15) Inquiring Mind
20 (-) Mars 2 Earth
20 (+) Offsetting Behaviour
[Comments] Average highest post per week:
400 (+95) Public Address
270 (+70) Kiwiblog
180 (+10) Frogblog
130 (-5) Standard
105 (-5) Hot Topic
90 (+10) Dim Post
85 (-45) Being Frank
70 (+30) TBR.cc
65 (+) Beretta
60 (-10) Not PC
60 (+5) Red Alert
60 (+25) Reading the Maps
40 (+5) Brian Edwards
40 (+) MacDoctor
35 (-5) Open Parachute
35 (+15) Editing the Herald
35 (-) No Minister
30 (+10) The Dunedin School
30 (+10) Bat, Bean, Beam
30 (+) Gotcha!
30 (+10) Kotare
30 (-25) MandM
25 (-10) Kiwipolitico
25 (-) New Zeal
25 (+5) NZ Conservative
25 (+) All Embracing (#100+)
20 (-) TUMEKE!
20 (-5) Cactus Kate
20 (-) Hand Mirror
20 (+) Bowalley Rd
20 (-) In a Strange Land
20 (+) Poneke
20 (+) Lindsay Mitchell
20 (+) Pundit
20 (+) Mars 2 Earth
Total blogs in this survey: 203.
---
During this survey a sitemeter that showed a massive, unusual and continuing surge in traffic has come to my attention. Fortunately the sitemeter has a function to show the IP addresses and countries of origin: mainly from India and the Baltic. This activity is highly suspicious and the results so dubious I have had to discount it and resort to the default Alexa score for that blog. This is hopefully not the start of anything that will undermine the rankings and the situation will be monitored closely to make sure this does not happen. It is also worth noting here that for some months now - certainly over the course of the year - many Christian bloggers have been cranking up their Alexa rank by installing the Alexa tool in their browsers. This little trick is a mechanism to advantage their blogs and it appears they are doing it quite deliberately. It causes an unwelcome distortion to the traffic estimates. Where it is blatant they will be rounded down.
---
Thanks to all those bloggers who have sent in their stats [editor (at) tumeke.org]. The December survey is due for release on 20th January and will mark two years of the nz blogosphere rankings.
Labels: nz blogosphere
posted by Tim Selwyn @ 5:43 pm
3 comments
3 Comments:
Hmmm, so you don't trust a Sitemeter but are willing to trust an Alexa ranking system which is known to be wildly inaccurate and open to abuse.
I do know the site you have decided to "penalise" in terms of ranking and I also know why the hits went up massively in November and December. (No, I'm not from Hitting Metal, but I do have my own site with a public Sitemeter.)
The problem with your line of reasoning here in penalising Hitting Metal is that you are prepared to disregard stats if YOU don't know where they came from. If you start taking this tack, then, for instance, if you hadn't been aware of Whaleoil's publicity lately, you would also have to disregard the big spike in hits that he is about to get in January.
Also, your assertion of locations and IP addresses showing up on Sitemeter reports is accurate BUT this information changes by the hour and is not cumulative. Therefore, if you saw a lot of hits coming in from India and the Baltics, it was not a trend, just what was happening at that time.
Duff man, I reject all of your criticisms:
"Hmmm, so you don't trust a Sitemeter but are willing to trust an Alexa ranking system which is known to be wildly inaccurate and open to abuse. "
- I've given my reasons why I don't trust that particular sitemeter and I have stated on numerous occasions why I use Alexa and how and why it is inaccurate (but is still the best and most comprehensive measure that I have been able to find to measure traffic).
"I do know the site you have decided to "penalise" in terms of ranking and I also know why the hits went up massively in November and December. (No, I'm not from Hitting Metal, but I do have my own site with a public Sitemeter.) "
- You say you know, but you don't say. That lacks credibility considering you then go on to write two more paragraphs.
"The problem with your line of reasoning here in penalising Hitting Metal is that you are prepared to disregard stats if YOU don't know where they came from. If you start taking this tack, then, for instance, if you hadn't been aware of Whaleoil's publicity lately, you would also have to disregard the big spike in hits that he is about to get in January. "
- No. I investigate obvious anomalies and draw conclusions from the information gathered. I did not have the time or inclination to engage in an email dialogue with the bloggers themselves about the issue either - it is up to them to correct me if they take issue with what I have done (they have not raised it with me to date - you are the first to do that). If you are going to use an example don't use Whaleoil - he does not have a publicly available sitemeter. As I said I will investigate before I make a decision to "penalise."
"Also, your assertion of locations and IP addresses showing up on Sitemeter reports is accurate BUT this information changes by the hour and is not cumulative. Therefore, if you saw a lot of hits coming in from India and the Baltics, it was not a trend, just what was happening at that time."
- There is no "BUT" about it, if someone goes way off the traffic dial and the sample of IP addresses backing that total up are returning hits every second from the Baltics and India and I look through the blog content and find nothing relevant to India or the Baltic then that is enough to suggest something is awry - I don't really need to go through every hour of the last month to reasonably conclude that something is awry.
People are inflating their stats by enlisting bots in India and the Baltic? That kind of effort deserves to be rewarded surely!
I too am a bit puzzled at Alexa to be honest. I've only just discovered it and based on my stats on your site, assuming you took them accurately, my Alexa ranking is half what it was in October, yet I am pretty sure I have in fact more than twice the amount of traffic... And the keywords linking in are a joke, they look to have been taken on a random week over a year ago.
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