Forum Post: This forum's traffic statistics are not good
Posted 12 years ago on Feb. 13, 2012, 7:29 p.m. EST by TechJunkie
(3029)
from Miami Beach, FL
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/occupywallst.org
The reach and page views number are not good at all.
I hope that there is some kind of plan to turn this trend around?
UPDATE JUNE 25 2012: It's getting even worse: http://cl.ly/203X2u2i3M0x2o3B102y
UPDATE JUNE 26 2012: http://cl.ly/0s1L190o2O1N0h3d1p0r
That's search traffic only.
Those who know about this movement don't need to search for it.
I really don't think the creators of this site care too much what happens with the general debate side of things.
The site is simply a place to post news of the movement, and affiliate actions.
I come here to read, mostly, and there are highs and lows, and understandably, peaks and troughs of activity, but the news it what I'm here for, and links to information sources that I wouldn't be aware of otherwise.
Those who provide those links are doing a fantastic job of sharing information, and I see no downturn in what they are doing with their tireless research.
Thanks heaps for your efforts, people.
No, that is not just search traffic. But you can look at the "Search %" statistics for an even more disturbing trend. The plummeting search % metric indicates an increasingly insular community.
The graph from your link shows search traffic and search parameters only. It even links which search engines are giving which stats.
Oh, and I already addressed the insular community issues. The same happens to every forum or message board on the internet.
Much better to just share links and relevant information, which is what this board was intended for, rather than pretend to joust with the various detractors who utilise multiple usernames, to give the impression of many who are against the movement.
Alexa's data comes from its toolbar users, not search engines. Some of the data comes from their own web crawler, not from search engine web crawlers.
You're starting to remind me of the idiotic argument that I had on this site last week, when I tried to point out that the unemployment percentage reported by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics is not based on the number of people filing for unemployment benefits. More than one person responded over and over that it wasn't true, even after I posted the clear explanation from the BLS over and over to the thread. That incident is the sort of thing that has been turning me off of this site. I was astonished at how difficult it was to point out a simple fact. It was like talking about evolution with a room full of fundamentalist creationists.
People who insist on believing in falsehoods because those falsehoods back their preconceived narratives apparently think that they're winning some kind of points through persistence. But what they're really doing is turning off people who aren't so blind to reality. That's my personal hypothesis for why the statistics for this site are plummeting.
The traffic statistics are good for this site if you compare them to other OWS forums and to Tea Party websites. It ranks very high compared to those.
occupywallst.org Global Rank 12,570, U.S. Rank 10,791, Sites Linking In 11,622
occupytogether.org Global Rank 99,370, U.S. Rank 85,497, Sites Linking In 4,716
themultitude.org Global Rank 5,627,698, No U.S. Rank, Sites Linking In 28
teaparty.org Global Rank 305,725, U.S. Rank 36,604, Sites Linking In 539
teapartypatriots.org Global Rank 215,943, U.S. Rank 47,725, Sites Linking In 2,014
So no people using the Alexa toolbar are coming here? What the word on the street....um...Ggoggle analytics? Certainly you can't be a slave to idle, nonparticipating traffic just to keep your numbers up, but you still have to get in new blood else it becomes intellectual inbreeding. That kills movements.
Alexa is just one of many indicators. Here, take a look at the Google Trends report for the phrase "occupy wall street".
http://cl.ly/0s1L190o2O1N0h3d1p0r
Well, that's telling! Spiked initial interest followed by steady decline.
If "splash plays" covered by main stream media pick up those numbers will pick up again. Plus, BONUS!!! FEWER TROLLS!!!
Alexa is bullshit dude. They use mystery math and give no point of reference from which the data is being compared to create the stats. They give rank with no qualifiers or context. Touting Alexa is the first clue that someone calling themselves a web designer means they know how to use wordpress and dreamweaver, not that they actually have a clue. I like you dude but alexa is garbage and you shouldn't be touting their wares.
Your alternative metric is... ?
Sure, being the site owner and having access to their analytics. There is no way to accurately measure a sites metrics unless they choose to make it publicly available. Compare your analytics data to alexa? As you indicated, most of their data is based off of their toolbar. How many people on this forum use their toolbar? It's incomplete data. It's like telling you I live at 122 and my house is green.
True enough, but I'm not inferring anything but trends. And obviously Alexa has enough data to measure trends, because at one point this web site had a much broader reach than it does now. When the Bureau of Labor and Statistics publishes the unemployment percentage, that's based on a survey of 60,000 households. So it isn't a true measure, but trends upward or downward are still useful to monitor. It's called "sampling".
We all see the lower traffic on the forum. And it does suck ass to see it happening. But I also am quite sure the media and other positions of power have a constant eye on this forum, making even the low traffic count far more then the stats could ever indicate. Higher numbers would help the movement grow on a grass roots level though and I agree with you entirely that we should work towards that. Maybe we could influence more people to share this forum on their social pages. Maybe pressure Jart to add a few social sharing buttons.
FYI: the trend continued. Now it's even worse.
http://cl.ly/203X2u2i3M0x2o3B102y
I think it falls on all of us to flood the internet with our voices. I promote my blog and information that the media isn't getting out. We should all be doing this. We should all be promoting each other as well but I have learned there is little cooperation in this area. If we cannot roll with the changes we will not see our goals realized before this thing ends.
It really is pretty obvious that people who cared to disagree with the movement have moved on. I think that happened because many people of this movement don't want to hear any other opinions. Unfortunate really, since I doubt seriously that any of the one percent are truly worried about, or spending their time debating anyone on this forum. So that means that the majority of the 99 percent have been dis enchanted with the movement and probably no longer offer much support for it.
Yes, this definitely seems increasingly like an echo chamber for reinforcing preconceived notions.
Here is a third example of the same kind of thing.
What did you think was going to happen? That a conservative shows up, disagrees with OWS, and everyone here goes "Oh yeah, you're totally right. I'm going to quit OWS right now and go back to the status quo, because your points are completely valid."
That's as silly as going to Foxnews.com to convince the people there to vote for Obama.
The third example of truthiness that I referred to in that last post was a person who insisted on believing in a misrepresentation of an IPSOS poll published by Iranian state media, because it said what he wanted to believe. It was not an example of a conservative disagreeing with OWS and expecting people to give up on OWS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truthiness
In another example a few posts above, several people simpy refused to believe that the unemployment number published by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics is NOT based on the number of people filing for unemployment benefits. I posted the explanation from the BLS more than once but it simply wasn't what people wanted to believe, so they continued to believe in a falsehood because that's what felt right in their gut.
The first example, on this page, is the guy who insists that Alexa rankings are based on data from search rankings.
"truthiness"
I don't know enough about your first two points, but on the third point you should have just stopped and posted this link: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=How+are+alexa+rankings+determined
Am I reading this right? OWS outranks Simply Recipes but is pretty far behind The Survival Blog (as in - what to do if an asteroid hits the earth or if 12/12/12 is the end of the world type of thing)?
Many of us have noticed the drop in number of users. Seems to have taken a turn for the worse after the Oakland incident a few weeks ago where they tried to break into a building to Occupy it. And there was lots of talk of Blackbloc around that time too and OWS seemed to be inviting Blackbloc activity. That turned alot of people off I think.
PR is certainly not a core competency. And OWS doesn't seem particularly concerned about it.
The other day an idea was floated on the forum to not vote. Did you happen to see that one? I thought about you! I remembered your post about voter registration drives. Such a good idea! The more I think about it, the more I think you're so right about that.
[Removed]
Well it may get better now that Obama's two most devout jock supporters have made their long over-due exiles effective.
Good riddance GF and ZD, you demo-commie losers.