Meta: Site traffic since Searchbits started
I've seen a thread on the ol 503 and a few comments about it as well, alluding to the fact that traffic has been up significantly. Is there anywhere out there we can go to find numbers for traffic on a particular site or would that info have to come from Brian? It would be interesting to see traffic here at Mgo over the last month and a half or so.
January 5th, 2015 at 5:21 PM ^
Thank you for introducing me to this helpful site I will now get some use out of! I would imagine that December will show a pretty hefty spike in unique viewership.
January 5th, 2015 at 11:52 AM ^
While I don't have access to the site traffic data, here is a link to the trend of people searching for mgoblog.
http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=mgoblog&cmpt=q
The site is seeing all-time high interest. Funnily enough, it would seem the last time there was a peak was the Hoke hire.
January 5th, 2015 at 11:54 AM ^
For what seemed like significant portions of the day back in early January 2011, you almost literally could not log into this site during the last search. Much of that was traffic and interest in the rumors, some of that was some infighting in a few threads RE: Rodriguez, and perhaps a small portion of it was that - one afternoon - the banner changed probably seven or eight times in one hour, leading to some downtime.
January 5th, 2015 at 12:51 PM ^
Serious question -- is there any plans (that's you're aware of) to improve the hosting capacity of MGoBlog? Or maybe even update the underlying software?
I know it's a free site, and I'm not complaining ... just curious whether or not there has been internal discussions in this space?
Also -- just because I'm curious about the business model of MGoBlog and other places like this -- has there ever been discussions about making it part free and part pay? Like the "insider" thing other sites do?
January 5th, 2015 at 1:46 PM ^
Don't quote me on this but I think I remember a couple of years ago someone (maybe not Brian per se) say something to the tune of "It will remain free as long as it's sustainable to do so."
January 5th, 2015 at 11:56 AM ^
mgoblog beats out mgoblue.
January 5th, 2015 at 12:02 PM ^
Not that surprising...Mgoblog provides analysis and forums that Mgoblue doesn't have. I don't visit Mgoblue much except to check schedules, buy tickets and watch some of the behind the scenes videos. And aside from the behind the scenes stuff you can do all that stuff besides purchasing season tix elsewhere.
January 5th, 2015 at 12:52 PM ^
Do enjoy hearing the actual Michigan guys calling the action. But disappointed that the website itself has gone the way of more white space and less instant info and clarity, along with switching to a really tacky font (IMHO). Wonder if it's the CBS connection. They're responsible for the Gametracker, which is much uglier too.
/personal rant; tempered for general consumption.
January 5th, 2015 at 1:10 PM ^
I threw ESPN in there too for the comparison. In general ESPN hammers Mgo, without comparison. But during last month, MGo had 1/5 the traffic ESPN had. Amazing.Granted it was a multiyear low for ESPN, but still.
January 5th, 2015 at 12:12 PM ^
Pretty interesting. The 3 highest google search peaks for mgoblog were all during coaching searches!
January 5th, 2015 at 12:39 PM ^
I have to imagine that most people who search for Michigan football basically stop as soon as they hit MGoBlog as it related to the coaching search, which probably contrinbuted to that huge spike as well.
January 5th, 2015 at 11:51 AM ^
I had poked around the googles looking and all I could find easily were vendors which wanted to sell me site tracking software for my site. Which I don't have one of. This was exactly what I was looking for.
January 5th, 2015 at 12:55 PM ^
I saved the URLs of some of my posts to see how much the number increased in between. (Quite a bit, and quite quickly.) But of course that's only the number of actual posts and not the traffic itself.
January 5th, 2015 at 1:06 PM ^
Number of posbangs. Have to be at an all time high.
January 5th, 2015 at 2:43 PM ^
Generally speaking, the only way to get bonafide information is through Ominture as it is a census tool. MGoBlog isn't using Omniture, but it is using Google Analytics. Google Analytics is pretty darn good, but you would need to log into the GA account to access this information, and there's only a few people who have direct access to that (his name might be Brian). Site information is typically proprietary and is rarely shared with the world at large.
Other 3rd party tools like Compete, Quantcast, SEMrush and others are good at providing direcitonal information. You'll find that it is rarely accurate, but at least allows you to compare a couple of sites together. For example, compete.com may show that MGoBlog had 2MM visits last month and ESPN had 4MM. The actual numbers will be off (e.g. MGoBlog may have had 134,401 visits in reality), but you could at least determine that ESPN has roughly twice as many visits as MGoBlog.
January 5th, 2015 at 7:10 PM ^
January 6th, 2015 at 10:22 PM ^
I can guess at a couple of direct ways that it translates into more bling for Brian.
The easy ones are increased exposure to 'beveled guilt' and merchandise. First time visitors likely don't donate or buy stuff, but if they come to the site once there is a chance they come back again. And then all of sudden your are hooked (you know how this goes). However, I would wager that a good deal of it comes from banner advertising.
The placements (e.g. the spots that those ads appear -- like the 728x90 at the top of the site) are available on a couple of exchanges (AppNexus, Google Display Network, Yahoo, etc.). Exchanges make placements available across billions of sites. Advertisers bid on those placements at a cost of roughly $2 per 1,000 impressions (an impression occurs for each placement every time a page is loaded). Whether anyone clicks on it or not (typically), the blog doesn't get the full reward but gets a good cut of it. The more people that visit the blog, the more ads that can run, the more dollers the site earns.
Something that I find interesting is that you will almost always get a different set of ads based on your internet browsing habits, where you live, how much money you make and even your political affiliation. The rabbit hole goes pretty deep, my friend.
January 5th, 2015 at 5:10 PM ^
January 7th, 2015 at 7:21 AM ^
TTB doesn't do nearly as much traffic as MGoBlog, but there was a significant drop in traffic to TTB as the season went along. I think a lot of people just got worn out from how bad the team looked. And unlike in past seasons, Michigan NEVER really looked good this year. Past seasons have seen Michigan start off well before dropping off late in the year, but other than the ASU game, Michigan was kind of a patsy this season.
Anyway, I have seen an uptick in traffic of roughly 15% since Hoke was fired. And I'm obviously not even the go-to site for breaking news and such, so I imagine MGoBlog's traffic is at a much higher percentage increase.