May 2004 Stats and Referrers
For the fourth straight month, OTB has set a new record for traffic, with 463,972 unique visits, 831,958 page views, and 2,476,619 hits as counted by HostingMatters.* SiteMeter counted approximately 470,000 unique visits and 605,000 page views.
These numbers are wildly inflated by search engine and other traffic generated by the frenzy over the Nick Berg video, plus several stories of unusual interest, notably the Abu Ghraib prison scandals and the hubbub over Alexandra Kerry’s Cannes dress. Indeed, I had several days of traffic during the month that were higher than any of the several InstaLanches I’ve experienced; one day was higher than any previous total month.
Clearly, while solid writing and analysis is the best way to build a steady audience, gore and titilation generates more short-term traffic. Go figure.
Below are the top weblog referrers to OTB for the month of May. They’ll be honored on the left sidebar for the next month:
- Wizbang 92,000+ **
Professor Bainbridge 11,300+
Backcountry Conservative 6100+
Rooftop Report 3000+
VodkaPundit 2750+
WalloWorld 2450+
One Hand Clapping 2150+
ScrappleFace 1600+
Political Wire ~1200
Protein Wisdom ~1000
Whomping Willow 875+
Wonkette 875+
Signifying Nothing 825+
Patterico’s Pontifications 800+
Political Animal 650+
Needless to say, it took more referrals to make the cut last month. Indications so far are that June will be comparatively normal.
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*These figures exclude traffic generated by robots, worms, and other non-humans.
**Obviously, a record. Indeed, I’ve never had a previous month over 77,000.
Clearly I overlinked you :-).
Flames girls, James! Follow up Nick Berg with the net’s most searched naked boobie pictures, and you’ll have a one-two punch that will just keep the hits coming.
OK but your present rate of traffic shows about 130,000 per month now. (last week * 4.3)
If your previous record was 77,000 that’s a bump. Are you still getting Berg traffic or did a few of those people stick around for your ‘solid writing and analysis?”
I still had unusually high traffic at the tail end of last week. I’m now getting 3000-4000 a day again, which is the range I was in right before the Berg spike. But, yeah, that’s still high compared to what I was doing at the end of April.