Well, BNN screwed up their Political Blog rankings again. This time they listed Red County #1, Liberal OC #2, and the Orange Juice #7. But let’s take a look at what Alexa.com, the Web Information Company, has to say about the REAL O.C. Political Blog Rankings:
According to Alexa.xom, “The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and data obtained from other, diverse traffic data sources, and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach).”
Here is how Alexa.com is currently ranking the O.C. Political Blogs:
- The Orange Juice (see graphic above): 158,412.
- Red County (a statewide GOP blog made up of 13 blogs): 234.339
- The Liberal OC: 402,080
- Flash Report: 441,123
- Bolsavik: 517,135
- John Seiler’s Blog: 797,940
I am not sure why Red County has lost to us for the past five weeks or so, but they have, according to Alexa.com. And the Liberal OC clearly isn’t close to our overall numbers. How BNN got that wrong I have no idea, but folks are going to start wondering what is up at BNN if they keep this up. And it is only a matter of time before Bolsavik catches up to the Flash Report, which has been sliding ever since a Flasth Report blogger, Adam Aleman, was arrested and charged with multiple felonies.
Thanks as always to our loyal readers and bloggers for making us the #1 political blog in Orange County!
Art –
When is John Seiler, such a talented writer, going to realize the he should be on our team?!
SMS
Again with the oh-so-accurate Alexa rankings? I’m guessing you never did the same head-to-head-to-head on Compete.com?
Like I said before, if you have to keep beating your chest to convince yourself…
Well, BNN screwed up their Political Blog rankings again.
LOL! When BNN ranks OJ highly, then its working just fine. When it ranks OJ lower, then it is “screwed up.”
Notice a pattern?
Snore.
Matt/Jubal,
If that were true we would take the BNN link off our blog – and we don’t do that, do we? You did though, the first time we were ranked above your blog – or have you forgotten that?
I never heard of compete.com but I did check it out just now. It says they have little data for our blogs. So why do you trust them? They show the Liberal OC having more traffic than us, but our mutual Sitemeter stats show that we are getting twice the traffic that they are. It’s not close.
You yourself turned me on to Alexa.com – although you now deny doing so. Now that we are whipping you it is no surprise you don’t like them.
The fact is Matt you don’t like that we are beating you. It must be driving you nuts. But honestly, you are a red blog in a very blue state. Why would that be a winning formula? And you rely far too much on email press releases. That is not blogging, it’s regurgitation. And it’s boring.
Say what you will about the Orange Juice, but we are NOT boring…
SMS,
Does this blog really need another right-of-center writer? Pretty soon, it’s gonna be “Red County Lite”.
So BNN was reliable, now it’s not. Alexa is reliable, but compete.com can’t be trusted. Do you think that maybe, just maybe, chasing these numbers is a relatively meaningless exercise?
Anon is correct about “Red Co. Lite”, although a good writer is a good writer; you never want to pass one up. But this blog really doesn’t have a left anchor as Terry Crowley shows you where the right boundary is. Vern really isn’t a liberal when you take in the whole political spectrum — he’s an activist, for sure, and has a lot of great first-person stories of his activism, but he’s seems pretty much a constitutionalist, that’s political center, not the left. A true “lefty” who remains within the bounds of rationale discourse (i.e. not a revolutionary or nutcase) is a proponent of significant modification of existing laws to correct social injustice against the working class and poor. Franklin Rooseveldt was a lefty, … so was LBJ, a master lefty in disguise. We do need a good voice from the left, but an interesting and thoughtful one, not a boom-box of cliches.
SAHS teacher. By your definition I will be a “lefty” when I start talking about single-payer healthcare. Somethng we NEED to start ASAP. I’m waiting for the right moment. We choose our battles.
Thanks for noticing my devotion to the Constitution. I’m holding my leftiness in check FOR NOW!
#5 –
Notice that I didn’t reference his politics. I merely called John a talented writer. I hope you’re not trying to argue the point.
SMS
SMS,
Do you need to reference his politics in order for me to do so? Umm, no.
#10 –
… huh?! Do you care to elaborate on why you think he isn’t a good writer? Perhaps it’s because you disagree with his politics? I’m not even sure what you’re really trying to say here.
SMS
SMS,
Geesh, I didn’t say he wasn’t a good writer. That is irrelevant to the point I was making (the one I don’t need your permission to make) which is that he would be another right of center writer on this blog…further tilting it rightward. It already tilts that way quite noticeably. And whether or not I agree with his politics has nothing to do with that point either.
#12 –
Take your venom elsewhere. Nobody said you needed permission to speak your mind. Unfortunately, the downside to an open community is the multitude of gadflies who use that lack of censorship to criticize it.
SMS
Matt –
Compare.com, ok. You claim you have more influence because you have more unique readers (reach) and I’m assuming you used the following graph to draw your conclusion:
While you may have more unique visitors than Orange Juice, you also serve most of California, while we serve Orange County only. Also, another caveat you missed:
‘We do not have any data for liberaloc.com, and little data for, orangejuiceblog.com, redcounty.com, so these are rough estimates. With more data, we can cover more sites. Try the Compete browser plug-in to participate.‘
Does a user need to be using the plug-in to be counted? That statement is awfully suspect.
You also probably don’t want people to see these graphs and figures, keeping in mind that we are not a statewide blog:
The fact that we’re anywhere near your entire network of sites on these graphs is downright amazing, especially considering that LiberalOC doesn’t even track.
And of course, we’re also still outright #1 on Alexa, which means we still have more visitors and page views on average than any other blog in OC… and we’re still growing.
Nobody’s going to dispute that you have a very popular site, but that’s to be expected for a partisan blog the size of yours. We’re more like ‘the little blog that could,’ chugging our way up in the ratings by our sheer will and determination, and of course I’d be remiss not to insert a plug for myself while we’re on the subject: our ratings spike coincided with my arrival and subsequent redesign of this site. Just saying.
Oh, and I received your compliment through our mutual friend. I’m glad we can have good, solid debate on this site and again I appreciate the respect you’ve shown me at Red County since the LibOC threw me under the bus. Thanks again!
Looking forward to more friendly competition,
SMS
SMS,
Venom? LOL. That’s priceless. Stanley Fiala is venom. The point I was making is not venom. I can’t help it if the truth behind that point is disagreeable to you.
Oh, and pardon me for offering a contrary or alternative point of view. You implied that it would be great to have Seiler writing for this blog. I made a point about a potential effect that would have. Simple as that.
Red County is #1 because of fairness approach for posting bloggers! Red County = #1 translates to
Jubal = #1. Art Pedroza’s ranking will continue to decline due to his blog policy. All day he is lucky to have his OWN 3 people to post writings!
I am so over the my dick is bigger then your dick stuff. Those of us that read the political blogs read all of these blogs. SOmetimes there are better (or more fun/important to comment on) stories on one then the other. WHO CARES!
Flowerszzz,
That’s a crude way to put it. The fact is our detractors often USED to say that no one read our blog. Now that we have been the top OC Blog for several weeks, that argument simply doesn’t sell.
IMHO our blog offers the most interesting stories in the OC blogosphere. The red and blue blogs offer sanitized partisan spin. Where’s the fun in that?
Crude, blunt and the truth. I blog at Red County do I sound “sanitized” and politically correct lol? The truth is that you keep tooting your own horn because you feel you have something to prove. Again I ask who cares? All the blogs offer something different, and I personally like that and read them all. Most I suspect would agree with me.
Flowerszzz,
To be honest I don’t read Red County very often. I look at their posts on BNN. If I see one that is of interest I read it and then move on. I haven’t the time to blow hours on other blogs.
Lol okay Art…I believe you.
I don’t see the point of Alexa.com, much less Compete.com.
Nobody can measure how many web surfers (A) get on your web site (B) unless they get permission from either A or B.
Web counters get permission from the B’s by having their little boxes on your sites.
Alexa and Compete look at the numbers from the A’s, and can only do so if the users install their toolbars.
Seriously, now, how many smart, computer-savvy people do you know who install toolbars willy-nilly?
All sites like Alexa and Compete suffer from the same problem: Only people who don’t know any better install their toolbars, and so they only get those numbers.
If anything, though, the better known the service, the more quote-unquote reliable the numbers become, as it seems more likely to have their toolbars installed on more computers and across a more reflective population. So if there’s a gun to my head that forces me to choose one or the other, I’d take Alexa.
But both are pointless.
If rankings were money, that’d be something else. But it ain’t, so what’s the point?
Bolsavik,
It speaks to credibility . Our detractors used to say that no one read our blog. Today we know that is untrue.
I also make our Sitemeter data available to the public. That data is very trustworthy. I pay several hundred dollars a year to make the expanded data available to our readers.
Your blog is quickly moving up on Alexa and BNN. I commend you for your efforts. That your blog has almost caught up with the Flash Report speaks for itself.
Bolsavik –
I don’t know about Compete.com but Alexa does NOT require the use of a toolbar as far as I know. I could be wrong, but if I’m mistaken, please show me how so.
SMS
Been gone for a few days, but let me just say this, Art:
I didn’t recommend Alexa to you. Why would I recommend a questionable web traffic site that I never utilize?
I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that Red County is miles ahead of OJ in terms of traffic and influence, no matter how often you want to rant about “reliable” Alexa.
What I referred you to was Google Analytics, and I find it curious that you never — despite a promise to do so — make those numbers public, especially the Absolute Unique Visitors metric.
Your new OJ site is optimized for the search engines, so now you’re getting a big jump in Google referrals. Good for you. I’m sure a lot of folks Google “orange juice” and find your site that way, only to discover it has nothing to do with the drink.
Keep beating your chest, Art. If it keeps you convinced of your own importance and relevance, I wouldn’t want to take that away from you.
Matt/Jubal,
Yes you did. But that aside it is laughable that YOU are challenging me to post my Google Analytics info when you steadfastly refuse to post ANYTHING about your blog’s alleged readership. You won’t even post Sitemeter even though most blogs do.
Tell you what – add Sitemeter to your blog and I will post my Analytics numbers.
By the way, we beat you again in the latest figures from Alexa. Sucks to be number 2 doesn’t it?
Matt –
‘Your new OJ site is optimized for the search engines, so now you’re getting a big jump in Google referrals. Good for you. I’m sure a lot of folks Google “orange juice” and find your site that way, only to discover it has nothing to do with the drink.‘
Even though it’s true that we can found by searching on ‘orange juice,’ and that for that search term we’re actually ranked higher than both Tropicana and Minute Maid, the large majority of our traffic comes either directly or through the search term ‘orange juice blog.’ I say if people are asking for us by name, we must be doing something right.
SMS