My Stats Reflect How the Web Is Changing

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Robert Scoble is back to blogging, investing more time and attention this week there as opposed to Twitter and Friendfeed. He linked to me this week, which sparked my curiosity and encouraged me to dig into my Google Analytics archives to see a) how my traffic drivers have changed and b) what, if any, broader trends can be discerned.

For the purpose of this experiment I looked at two times when one of the web's most influential voices - then and now - linked to me: his post from earlier this week and another from December 27, 2006. While not entirely scientific, what they have in common is that a) Robert put the link at the top of the post and that b) both came during holiday weeks when web traffic typically slows. (In theory, to really test this I should track referrals from Scoble's Friendfeed/Twitter accounts - I suspect that they drive tons of traffic. However, that's hard to do given the way the sites are structured. Perhaps we can use Bitly stats to run a test)

Here's are my three takeaways from this little experiment (I am discounting the links from my old blog to this new one. It's an anomaly since I just switched) ...

I suspect that Twitter and Friendfeed today are major traffic drivers to many sites. I have heard this in meetings with execs at major media companies. What this means is that you must to syndicate your content where the people are and then engage in conversations around it in order to influence.
Yes, having a place you can call home online still matters. But you better make sure that it is dynamic and socially connected the social hubs. Louis Gray says your blog is your castle. But the problem is the big blog platforms like Blogger and TypePad have really fallen behind the curve. Blogs are fragmenting. They're virtually isolated from the social hubs. Posterous lets you post everywhere at once plus it syndicates reader comments into Twitter, Facebook and even Friendfeed if you use Backtype. Tumblr I believe can do the same. These companies are redefining publishing by making a blog format more social. The blog needs a reboot. I am excited to learn more about Tumblr when I meet with them later today.
I am curious about the word "Direct" in my logs. My gut is that in 2009 it reflects Twitter desktop clients while in 2006 it was more about desktop RSS readers.

Those are my takeaways from this little science experiment. What's your experience with stats?

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17 comments

Jul 02, 2009

ZuDfunck said...

Will be anxious to hear what your meeting with Tumblr brings. Using it and love it!

Jul 02, 2009

Scott Gould said...

Hey Steve, twitter and friendfeed are my number one and two traffic sources. So for me, these two have become my lynchpin of syndication, as well as my discussion and commenting, along with disqus and posterous.

Agreed that micromedia is making content more accessible through multi-touch. My thoughts are, though, how do the things within this discussion affect the early adopters and not just the innovators. Seems there are plenty of social tools to help socialmediaites connect with other socialmediaites - but - isn't that just us passing content from one to another?

I'm keen to know what will have mass appeal, and start investing their.

Jul 02, 2009

Rikin said...

Some interesting trends that definitely echo with the analytics I've seen across a number of sites i've looked at recently. Google obviously dominates but for many small blogs with low PR Twitter and other streams are definitely working better for them.

Have you tried out the bitly sidebar? It's a great way to see the inbound links to ANY page via bitly. You'll miss out on other URL shorteners but get a relatively good idea for patterns and trends.

Jul 02, 2009

Steve Rubel said...

@Rikin I have and am very intrigued by bit.ly.

Jul 02, 2009

Joe Dawson said...

I agree with your comments regarding Blogger and Typepad, I have brought elements of the social web to my site through widgets and integration but I would like it to be the source and destination of momentum across my various profiles

Jul 02, 2009

ScottHepburn said...

Steve, I noticed the same thing regarding Twitter's rise as a traffic source back in late 2008. For me, that probably reflected increased time spent on Twitter and the fact that I don't have as many other outposts as you, but I suspect the trend still holds up at bigger sites.

One of the biggest shortcomings of the analytics tools, as you point out, is that you don't get a more granular breakdown. Which Twitter users are your top referrers, for example? Whose Friendfreed accounts send you the most traffic?

We can safely assume Scoble was the top referrer in this case, but it's a safe assumption because he was isolated as a variable in this case. And yes, bit.ly analytics could help, but it's anything but simple and intuititive.

I think you've hit on an important topic in the metrics discussion. Greater scrutiny means we'll have to be more precise with our data, while still focusing on the big picture of embracing social engagement.

Jul 02, 2009

VitorV said...

Hi, Steve, the problem with tumblr I see are the poor visual editing tools, if they could be more customized would be more fun, it's quite boring to read different tumblrs when they all look the same.

Jul 02, 2009

Robert Auguste said...

I went and checked my own data on 2 sites. Compared the use of twitter/bit.ly integrated strategy vs the other in which the blogger just blogs about Media & Ent. Pretty telling on how the data is bit more accurate tagging all the sources. http://bit.ly/b8b3n

Jul 02, 2009

Ben Straley said...

Hi Steve. The power of passed links, as Fred Wilson likes to call it, is real. While we see that Twitter and Facebook are the largest single sources of traffic from shared links in most cases, email, blogs, and message boards/forums actually account for the most traffic in aggregate. On average, we see about 20% of ALL unique visitors to sites running Meteor are coming from shared links of one sort or another. We see about 25% of all traffic from shared links come from email/IM while vertically-oriented blogs drive 18% of pass-along traffic, and forums are down around 10%. Facebook+Twitter accounts for a little less than 10% of all traffic from shared links. In addition to the significant volume of traffic driven by pass-along, the quality of this traffic tends to be materially better than traffic from other sources. For example, people clicking through on shared links are more likely to take a specific action on the site (aka "convert") than people who've come from paid ads. The conversion lift our customers see is in the 1.5x to 4x range - results vary by vertical, offer, creative, etc.

It used to be we had to go and search for all of our information online. Then came RSS where we could set up rules for the kinds of information we were interested in and from what sources. Today, more and more of the information and entertainment we consume finds us in near real-time through our social graphs. The implications for what this means to marketers are pretty profound. Our marketing programs, creative, and content need to be useful/entertaining enough to get people to pass them along to the folks in their graphs who might/could/should be interested and receptive.

Jul 02, 2009

louisgray said...

Steve, you are 100% right on this post. In July of 2008, I said the importance of blog linking is declining. A link from Scoble or another high profile blog doesn't have nearly the impact it used to.

http://louisgray.com/live/2008/07/importance-of-blog-linking-seems-to-be.html

For me, Google and FriendFeed are consistently my top two referrers. And what I am seeing from you since you started this approach is some fantastic blogging in your new environment - like this! So keep it up.

Jul 02, 2009

Steve Rubel said...

@Louis that means alot coming from you. What do you like about this approach so far?

Jul 02, 2009

George F. Snell III said...

Steve, I've been experimenting with Posterous and tracking how it fairs against my "regular" Wordpress blog. I've been impressed. Posterous offers a lot of advantages in spreading the word and for engaging that simply blows away the built in limitations of my blog - which requires more manual ways of getting content on Twitter and FeedFriend. I've also noticed for a long time an increase in traffice from Twitter/FF. I think that speaks to the fact that people really are using both services as a referal RSS service.

Jul 02, 2009

Wayan said...

In the keep is simple category, just send your blog RSS to Twitter via something like EasyTweet. No need to switch from one platform to another or slag blogs in general.

I've sent almost all my activity on all my sites to Twitter, and yes, its now become a great traffic source. See that here: http://twitter.com/wayan_vota

I've also combined posts + comments into dedicated Twitter streams for specific sites, which also boosts traffic. See that here: http://twitter.com/olpcnews

Jul 02, 2009

wayan_vota said...

I really love the comment functionality on Posterious that lets me Twitter my comment - very cool! Only wish that didn't make me feel the need to stop at 140

Jul 03, 2009

Craig Balding said...

What tool are you using to create your graphics? KeyNote or...? Is my graphic envy showing? ;-)

Jul 03, 2009

Steve Rubel said...

@Craig yes.

Aug 16, 2009

Brent Hopkins said...

Steve, you have touched on a hugely significant change: Google Analytics is rapidly losing relevance as an analytical tool. You sort of glossed over it by saying you wished it had "more granularity." Doesn't that really mean that Google Analytics is behind the curve? That is huge! Google Analytics and AdSense dominate the web publishing industry... Yet they clearly are not staying on top of the important trends. This presents a significant business opportunity to challeng Google's dominance if someone can get moving on it quickly.

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