Matt/Jubal Cunningham likes to brag that his blog, Red County, is #1. Yet he steadfastly refuses to post his readership data. Most Orange County political blogs, including the Orange Juice and the Liberal OC, do post their readership data, via a link to Sitemeter. The Orange Juice goes one step beyond that as we post the expanded Sitemeter data – ata cost of hundreds of dollars each year.
Cunningham has been challenging me to post our Google Analytics data. Fine. Shown above is our Google Analytics visitor’s data for the months of June and July, 2008. We converted our blog from our old software to WordPress in May and by June our numbers had skyrocketed. Each month since our conversion we have bested the previous month. I am sure August will be fantastic too.
Our page views have also blown up since our conversion to WordPress. (See the graphic above).
So there you go Matt. Now YOU need to post YOUR readership data. Otherwise I shall have no choice but to assume that Alexa.com’s rankings are correct. According to Alexa.com, we have been trouncing Red County’s numbers since June 1.
Thank you to our webmaster, Sarah Spinosa, for helping to make us the number one political blog in Orange County – and thanks to all our co-bloggers and to our readers. We wouldn’t be number one without you!
UPDATE:
Matt/Jubal Cunnigham is making the crazed argument that folks are finding our blog because they are looking for blogs about Orange Juice, the beverage. So let’s have a look at what the data has to say about this:
Readers spend more than five minutes reading our blog when they visit. That is about double the national average, according to Google Analytics.
And check this out…68% of our readers are Returning Visitors. Only 31% are new Visitors.
How about folks who use search engines to find us? Over 1,700 in the past month have searched for the phrase “Orange Juice Blog.” Another 900 have searched for similar permutations of that phrase. Only 396 have searched for “Orange Juice.”
The graphic above indicates that just over a third of our traffic comes from search engines. The rest comes from referral sites and direct traffic.
So why has our readership blown up since our redesign? Matt’s theory is obviously crazy. But I think we CAN identify a few reasons why our readership has doubled, including:
- Sarah Spinosa set up our blog so that we could use a variety of tags that make it easier to find our stories on search engines, particularly Google.com.
- Our blog team is prolific – and over 90% of our posts are NOT press releases! We do often refer to newspaper stories but we also add our two cents to the resulting posts.
- Our blog team is the most diverse blog team in Orange County, bar none. Thus our posts are relevant to all sorts of readers, not just to Democrats or Republicans.
- Our bloggers don’t pander to the local political parties. Readers know they can read the Orange Juice without being spoon fed warmed up spin.
- Our newest bloggers each brought hundreds of readers to our blog. And some of our veteran bloggers, especially Larry Gilbert, email their articles to hundreds of folks in their email lists.
- And from time to time we end up helping to create real change in the community. Ask Santa Ana Clowncilman Carlos Bustamante how he feels about the role we played in getting him booted off two state commissions…
If Matt wants folks to believe that Red County is still the #1 political blog in Orange County then he needs to make his readership data available to the public. I suspect he can’t do that because his advertisers will find out he has been ripping them off…
Touched a nerve, didn’t I?
Matt/Jubal Cunningham likes to brag that his blog, Red County, is #1.
Actually, I very rarely “brag” about our traffic or our status as OC leading political blog.
Secondly, it’s not hard to figure out why your traffic has increased: if someone Googles “orange juice”, your blog now comes up second in the returns. In other words, lots of people looking for information about orange juice stumble on to your blog. How many of them immediately leave upon realization OJ has nothing to do with the nutritious breakfast beverage, I’ll leave to people’s common sense consideration (although Google Analytics would tell you that as well).
If I started a political blog called “Barbie Doll” or “GI Joe” and optimized it for the search engines, I’d get good numbers, as well.
Lastly, our page views and visits are well above yours, as I suspect is the case with the more determinative Absolute Unique Visitors metric.
My blog’s better than your-ers, my blog’s better than your-ers!!
GROW UP!
Jubal, that’s a horrible response. You’re blaming this blog’s name for the reason it’s more popular than Red Country? You should have taken Marketing 101 before you named your blog! Too bad for you this blog is a double threat…catchy name and damn good blogging!!!
Keep it up OJ!
Jubal –
‘How many of them immediately leave upon realization OJ has nothing to do with the nutritious breakfast beverage, I’ll leave to people’s common sense consideration (although Google Analytics would tell you that as well).‘
If I’m looking for a coupon for Tropicana orange juice, I’m not going to click on the link to this blog. Also, as I mentioned before ‘orange juice blog’ is by far the most popular search term people use the find us.
Sorry, but what you’re saying makes absolutely no sense.
SMS
Sarah he’s only giving you a simple response to a stupid question.
I don’t understand your fixation with bragging about this blog. If your blog is so good then let other people tell you. Instead both you and Art continue to throw around these self claims that you are #1 in the county.
I personally feel your blog would do better if you stopped posting stupid posts like this one. But I’ve already told you that before haven’t I?
Meanwhile, Matt never bothered to answer Art’s question. Why don’t you put up your figures, Matt?
Matt.
I am surprised to see your initial response.
Give credit where credit is due. The name of any company, or in this case the Orange Juice blog, is vital for name recognition and ease of access by potential users, or in our case, readers.
You should always look for a catchy “brand” for identification.
Our Corporation name was The Powerhouse Inc. Venture a guess as to how many leads, and million dollar orders, we received from people searching for products from our competitors with similar capability but with less identifiable names?
Perhaps you have a bottle of Bayer aspirin in your bathroom closet or you keep a gallon of milk in your Frigidaire.
Don’t get Art started or he might send you a box of Kleenex tissues.
Art.
At the end of the day my focus is on our traffic. I gave up looking in rear view mirrors when we drag raced on tracks in New York.
Larry #7 –
I hate to Xerox something I told Art on the telephone the other night, but the parent company of Red County is called ‘Partisan Media Group, LLC.’ Nice branding, Matt. There’s your truth in advertising! 😛
‘Partisan Media… we’re hacks and we openly admit it. Search for us by name!‘
SMS
Sarah.
Another great illustration. Not all political activists have taken classes in marketing.
SMS
I saw that branding, too. Doesnt leave much to the imagination, does it?
Larry,
Great post. I would call you an old goat, for mentioning Drag Racing (thinking of Lions Drag Strip and OCIR and Santa Ana DragStrip (aka John Wayne Airport), but you and I know that an old goat means a Pontiac GTO
Eh?
Schwarzenegger Centrist Republican
Do the names “Big Daddy” Don Garlits and Art, “Green Monster”, Arfons ring any bells?
We drag raced on the same NY track on the same day but NOT in the same heat.
Also, as I mentioned before ‘orange juice blog’ is by far the most popular search term people use the find us.
You prove my point: people searching for a blog about orange juice.
I used to get a portion of my visits from people looking for blogs about “The OC.” They’d click on the blog, the vast majority would leave, and some would stay.
Matt –
Have you gone mad? ‘Orange Juice Blog’ is the NAME of our blog. That means that people are looking for us BY NAME, and are not accidentally finding us while looking for Minute Maid.
SMS
That’s right, SMS, Jubal envisions that thousands of internet users around the country are searching for a website that provides daily NEWS AND OPINIONS on the subject of America’s favorite breakfast drink.
Yes, Matt has gone mad. But you and Art drove him mad. There is plenty of blame to go around.
SMS:
Sigh. No, it doesn’t. It means a number of those people are looking for your blog, and a number of them could be looking for a blog about orange juice (Vern, the tens of millions of internet users search for many different things, and as you know there are blogs devoted numerous topics).
Now that you’ve switched to WordPress, the search engines “see” your blog and those same people making those searches are now coming across your blog.
Otherwise, you’re maintaining that suddenly, in the last several weeks, there has been a huge, inexplicable surge in the number of Internet users searching for your blog.
Matt –
Are you serious? Do you really think that so many people are looking for a blog about a breakfast beverage?
It’s finally happened. You’re slightly mad.
‘Otherwise, you’re maintaining that suddenly, in the last several weeks, there has been a huge, inexplicable surge in the number of Internet users searching for your blog.‘
No, they found us through our articles referenced by search engines and now they find us through our name the same way. There are more people out there than you think that look for everything through search engines and never use bookmarks. Take my girlfriend for example. She only knows how to use MySpace.
SMS
SMS:
There’s a 1 minute home video on YouTube of a baby boy biting his 2-3 year old brother’s finger. It has been view more than 42 million times.
So, yeah — I think there are that many people Googling a blog about Orange Juice. People google all sorts of things.
What’s changed at this blog? The content is basically the same. The primary change is the move to WordPress and now the search engines see OJ. So the sudden jump in traffic isn’t a mystery.
If I’m looking for a coupon for Tropicana orange juice, I’m not going to click on the link to this blog.
One last thing, Sarah. II used too get a number of visits from people clearly looking for a blog about “The OC,” for example. And it is clear from the search results that my blog is not about the TV show., And yet they would click on it anyway.
Matt/Jubal,
I added more data to my post that serves to refute your crazed theory.
And yes we got over one thousand hits today – as we did yesterday and the day before…
Matt/Jubal,
One more thing. Sitemeter has an invisible meter available. But it has been my policy from day one to share our readership data with our readers.
Why won’t you do so as well?
Art –
Ironically, my wife and I happened to be looking at Red County’s traffic data when this post and your numbers popped up on my screen.
We both started laughing!
You are absolutely barking up the wrong tree on this and embarrassing yourself at the same time.
Matt and our blogpen of editorial contributors have worked very hard at developing a loyal and growing readership. We appreciate their collective (now there is a word you liberals can embrace) hard work and their passion for the issues that shape this community.
Scott –
‘Ironically, my wife and I happened to be looking at Red County’s traffic data when this post and your numbers popped up on my screen.‘
… and you’ll be releasing that traffic data when exactly?
SMS
One more thing. Sitemeter has an invisible meter available.
That may be true of this expanded version you for some reason pay “hundreds of dollars” for, but not the free version. So, from Day One, you didn’t have a choice in the matter.
… and you’ll be releasing that traffic data when exactly?
Uh, like never, SMS.
You and Art are the web traffic exhibitionists, not us.
Scott,
How cute! You and your wife read the Orange Juice together? Maybe you should stop trying to take marriage away from gays and focus on keeping married people together! “The couple that reads the Orange Juice together stays together!”
My personal theory is that you guys busted out laughing when you saw that picture of Farmer Matt…
Jokes aside, it just looks bad that you and Matt dont’ make Red County’s readership data available. It looks like you have something to hide. If you guys are such rulers of the universe why not prove it?
Or does the Emperor have no clothes on?
I’ll explain it one last time so that maybe even you can understand, Art. OC Blog (and subsequently Red County) has always used web traffic monitoring services for internal purposes. We’ve never promised to make them public, and we’ve don’t use them to convince others we are important — that’s your schtick.
And we also understand what we are looking at. You’ve selectively posted certain Google Analytics stats, yet hold back on more telling ones like the Absolute Unique Visitors metric.
You talk about your page view “exploding” since moving to WordPress. Has it occurred to you a major reason why is that in your new format, reader have to click on “read more” to read the rest of each post? That alone will double your page views because clicking “read more” counts as a separate page view. It helps to understand what you metrics really mean before you boast about them.
And now I’ll leave you to your blissful ignorance.
Matt/Jubal,
What you are saying is that people DO want to read our stories, but they apparently don’t want to read yours. Makes sense to me…
‘You and Art are the web traffic exhibitionists, not us.‘
It’s called ‘transparency.’ Your elected party hacks should take a lesson on the subject. Just ask your President how many illegal wiretaps have been conducted over the last 8 years… or maybe how many Executive Orders and ‘signing statements’ he handed down.
Your argument is a complete cop-out. Your advertisers are all rabid partisans and so are you based on the name of your parent company ‘Partisan Media, LLC.’
I wouldn’t be surprised if you don’t even release your numbers to your advertisers. I guess you really don’t have to because your advertisers have nowhere else to go.
Who else can they give their money to? Jon Fleishman?
SMS
Art, I said nothing of the kind, but accuracy and reading comprehension has never been your strong suit.
SMS:
I realize it must be frustrating for you and Art that you’ve been unable to attract advertisers, and so you are taking out that frustration on me with irrelevant rants, non sequiturs and straw men.
The name Partisan Media Group, LLC implies that we are are partisan, opinionated, and biased. We are. Depending on the issue, the philosophical perspective of our editorial contributors tend to range from just left of center to far right. The name also reflects that we are a private enterprise, not a public entity.
So here’s a re-cap:
Opinionated… yes.
Partisan… yes.
Center-right… yes.
Private enterprise… yes.
Public entity… no.
We would no sooner provide you with meaningful traffic data as we would provide you with financial data. It is simply none of your business.
And on a final note, you have really demonstrated a level of ignorance about tracking statistics, Alexa, SiteMeter, Google Analytics, pageviews, etc. that is truly embarrassing. In the same way I would never challenged a car guy to debate the nuances of a rebuilding a hot rod engine, you should avoid any discussion about website technology. Period.
I wish you the very best at your venture as I hope you would want our little enterprise to succeed. This is not a contest, but competition is a wonderful part of our free enterprise system and I believe we will both be better for it.
Regards,
Scott Graves
Red County
P.S. Just for giggles, I typed the following terms into Google search and yielded interesting results…
RedCounty (26,300)
RedCounty.com (25,300)
OrangeJuiceBlog (3,810)
OrangeJuiceBlog.com (3,640)
This has little to do with rankings, pageviews, or site traffic, but it is interesting.
Scott,
For someone who purports to know everything about blog readership metrics, it is strange that you would not consider that Red County is comprised of 13 distinct blogs. Of course you found more search results when searching for your blog!
if you aren’t going to share your readership data with the public then I will continue to go by the data on Alexa.com – data that ranks us far higher than Red County.
FYI, I always go to Orange Juice Blog via “google” when I am on my company’s computer.
I typed the following terms into Google search and yielded interesting results…
RedCounty (26,300)
RedCounty.com (25,300)
OrangeJuiceBlog (3,810)
OrangeJuiceBlog.com (3,640)
Though I’ve been mainly avoiding this argument, I think it’s relevant here that we’ve only been called “orangejuiceblog” for three or four months.
I think it was theorangejuice.com and orangejuice.blogspot.com before that, wasn’t it?
Scott –
‘The name Partisan Media Group, LLC implies that we are are partisan, opinionated, and biased.‘
Tell me. How exactly does that put your blog into the center-right? I happen to know a little something about the center, being the only blogger in the area that openly identifies with the concept of radical centrism (in case you don’t know who I am). A centrist may belong to any party, or no party, and when their party messes up, they don’t shy away from calling them out on it.
A partisan does nothing of the sort and is proud of it. They play by the party rules: get the other guys. These two schools of thought are completely incompatible, so which are you again?
SMS
Although I posted this on the latest version of this ongoing debate, I am adding it here for those following this older thread.
Larry Gilbert Says:
August 3rd, 2008 at 12:06 pm edit
Folks.
To date I have stayed away from this ongoing debate. However, as we are now in a presidential race, think about CNN, FOX, Gallup, NBC, Pew Research, Rasmussen, RCP or USA Today. Each of these firms/news agencies conduct polls with varying results as they are not contacting the same citizens.
Yes, in the early days we referecned BNN for our own critique of how we were doing. Just like going to a doctor when told you need major surgery, it makes a great deal of sense to get a second opinion. Hence Alexa.
Sadly, this debate really does not apply to 90 percent of our traditional readers. It does have value for seeing how we stack up against other blogs for our own edification as well as current and future advertisers as they consider where they will get the “biggest bang” for their buck.
LARRY
Do the names “Big Daddy” Don Garlits and Art, “Green Monster”, Arfons ring any bells?
We drag raced on the same NY track on the same day but NOT in the same heat.
Both do-I saw them at the old Irwindale Raceway, Orange County International Raceway (OCIR) r.i.p., Lyons in Long Beach, and Pomona.
Enough said about Big Daddy and the Green Monster. Memorable Days long gone.