I am starting a new feature tonight – the Orange Juice Week in Review. In this weekly column we will take a look at the Orange Juice stories that got folks talking. If you missed a day or two of the Orange Juice this week, here is your chance to catch up on what we were up to.
Top Stories – Number of Comments
There are several ways to identify if a story has become widely read. One way is to look at how many comments a story has generated. These are the top Orange Juice posts this week, in terms of numbers of comments per story:
- Memo to Carlos: Stop worrying about outsiders and start worrying about the residents (27 comments).
- Hanna defends the overspending on the Carona Sheriff Training Academy (21 comments).
- O.C. Political Chismes – CA GOP running without a platform? (19 comments)
- Who is Al Amezcua? (19 comments)
- When is anyone in this district held accountable? (17 comments).
- City of Santa Ana turns to T.V.’s – in the Age of the Internet (16 comments)
- Time for a new “grito” in Santa Ana! (14 comments)
- GOP legislative seats in trouble, Part 1: State Senate (12 comments)
- New activist group in Mission Viejo fighting cell towers in city parks (11 comments)
- SAUSD blows another $3 million… (10 comments)
Top Stories – Number of Page Views
Another way to gauge the popularity of a story is to see how many people read it. So here are the top stories this week, by page views:
- When is anyone in this district held accountable? (172 page views).
- Memo to Carlos: Stop worrying about outsiders and start worrying about the residents (167 page views)
- City of Santa Ana turns to T.V.’s – in the Age of the Internet (160 page views)
- O.C. Political Chismes – CA GOP running without a platform? (147 page views)
- Rancho Santiago College District lied and blew our tax money (126 page views)
- SAUSD blows another $3 million… (107 page views)
- Time for a new “grito” in Santa Ana! (103 page views)
- Hanna defends the overspending on the Carona Sheriff Training Academy (102 page views).
- New activist group in Mission Viejo fighting cell towers in city parks (101 page views)
- SAUSD packs them in (84 page views)
We have had 3,232 visits to our site since last Sunday, September 9, and 9,535 page views. Last week we had 3,206 visits to our site, and 9,015 page views. So our numbers increased since last week.
This week we also transitioned our blog to a new website and started gearing up to sell ads on our site. As always, I thank our readers and our co-bloggers for making this a top blog in Orange County.
By the way, I realize that our BNN ranking slipped to #11 this week. I emailed the BNN editor earlier this week and he said that they look at number of stories posted, number of hits, page views, and comments, as well as other information when deciding which political blogs have the most influence. And yet they selected Red County/OC Blog as their top blog in their new rankings. I must admit I am befuddled by that.
Red County/OC Blog had 40 posts this week. Seven of those posts were daily news links. Six other posts were emails that Red County/OC Blog editor Matt Cunningham received. Today Red County/OC Blog had exactly one post – their daily news links. They had two posts on the 13th, and one was their news links. By comparison, the Orange Juice had 52 posts this week.
Their top stories in terms of comments posted on them had 27,22,19,19,18,12, and 15 comments. We actually had more stories this week with double digit comments.
I cannot tell you how many readers Red County/OC Blog had this week because unlike us they don’t make their numbers available to the public. Your guess is as good as mine.
And yet BNN selected Red County/OC Blog as their top blog this week. And they selected our friends at the Liberal OC number four this week. But we had 2,500 more page views than they did, and over two hundred more hits.
Sometimes you can’t win for trying…
How does BNN look at number of hits or page views over at OC Blog when as Jubal states-Those are private.BNN just makes up what ever it wants as a marketing tool for itself.The only winner in the whole fiasco is BNN.
Page views don’t tell you how many people read a particular story — it just tells you how many times a page has been viewed.
I notice Art never reveals this key Google Analytics number: absolute unique visitors.
And Art loves BNN when he gets a high ranking. Now that he’s number 11, he thinks there must be something wrong with the ranking.
Maybe if Art spent less time worrying about OC Blog and more time making his a better blog, he’d attract more readers.
Poster 2,
Our numbers, via Sitemeter, are available for review. The Google information is strictly for our blog team’s use. If you have a problem with that too bad. Why don’t you ask Matt to at least add Sitemeter to his site?
As for BNN, we have had a great run with them, but this week’s rankings don’t make sense when you parse the numbers.
Finally, I rarely read Red County, and I sure don’t worry about what they are up to. I prefer my news with less spin…
Art…look to the bigger tent.
NAT news items get drawn into
the mixed of variables. That is
why Matt Drudge gets incredible
numbers. There is no way Drudge
pulls 20 million hits a day…
So, numbers aside…aren’t we
having fun yet?
The Google information is strictly for our blog team’s use.
You promised to share it with your readers. Now your breaking that promise.
Spin it how you want, Pedroza, but the fact is you lied.
Finally, I rarely read Red County, and I sure don’t worry about what they are up to. I prefer my news with less spin…
Yeah…that’s why you counted and categorized their posts and comments. No, you’re not worred about OC Blog.
Art “Promise Made, Promise Broken” Pedroza.
Nice ring to it!
Poster 7,
You mean like Pulido and his hacks when they promise every election to stop graffiti, build parks, build libraries, fix our roads, etc.?
Give me a break. I don’t owe you anything. Clearly it is bugging you that our blog is doing great and our numbers are going up every week.
Now that we have a new URL that is easy to remember, http://www.orangejuiceblog.com, we are getting even MORE readers. We just might have the best URL of any of the OC blogs.
So keep sniping…no one cares what you have to say. And our numbers today are even better than yesterday’s!
Don’t change the subject Art.
You PROMISED your readers you would share your Google Analytics stats.
Now you’re saying they’re “stictly for our blog team’s use.”
I don’t care if your blog’s doing good or bad. I have been checking your sitemeter numbers and they aren’t going anywhere.
But you made a promise and now your breaking it. Just admit that you’ve broken your promise.
Then again, if your numbers were so good, you’d have no problem telling us how many Absolute Unique Visitors you have.
So I understand why you lied and broke your promise.
I don’t owe you anything.
You do owe us something. You made a promise. And now you won’t keep it.
Poster 10,
You’re right – what was I thinking? I’ll tell you what, I will post the full report as soon as you talk Matt Cunningham into putting Sitemeter on Red County/OC Blog. I am sure he jumps every time an anon poster demands information…so it should not take you too long to convince him. Good luck!
Here’s an idea art:
Your blog is losing ground in BNN rankings because your posts are bringing your bloggers down.
The more you write ridiculous posts (screw Pulido this, that bitch Claudia that, Van Tran is corrupt, blah blah blah) without making even an OUNCE of effort to report their side of the story (or even call ANY of them for comments for that matter), you alienate readers who would otherwise be willing to read your posts.
The outcome is easy. You still get the page views, but your “unique visitors” like the previous anon said, is going down a waterfall.
Conclusion: You may get 35 page views on a post, but 25 of those are from the same 5 people, over and over again.
Start doing some actual WORK before writing your posts and your blog (especially you) MAY start getting some legitimacy back.
Poster 12,
The problem with your theory is that this last week six of our top ten stories, in terms of comments, were stories I wrote.
And 6 of the top 10 stories, in terms of page views, were likewise written by me.
So your argument does not carry any weight to it, at least with regard to hard data.
The fact is, you can go elsewhere to hear the spin that the people you referenced are putting out there, but folks come here to find out what is REALLY going on, in Santa Ana and throughout the O.C.
Art-
And how many of those comments were written by “Anonymous”?
And how many of those page views were you clicking “refresh” over and over again?
Give me a break man, I’m sure you can see the skepticism. My guess is BNN takes such things in consideration. If you were to release your “unique visitors” numbers, maybe the story would be different.