Wonkette and Traffic
What site creator wouldn't want 50K+ visitors per day? That's approximately the traffic Wonkette gets on workdays. Based on a quick estimate from Blogads' quoted prices, that much traffic can earn that site about $80-$140K/year in advertising. For sitting home in your warm space blogging (she's obviously not spending much time fact-checking). I think the content on Wonkette is as engaging as an episode of Will & Grace, only shallow. I glance through it once in a while out of curiosity.
My obsession, however, is the site's public display of popularity, the Site Meter Stats. The free version of Site Meter gives a bunch of running stats (referrers, search terms, duration of visit between two consecutive places on the site); the administrator can set the meter to be public or private. I consider her Site Meter to be essentially a daily GDP indicator. When "Average per day" (visitors) approaches 60K, the workforce is present, accounted for and bored out of their minds. When the numbers are substantially lower, it's usually a holiday or weekend. It's one of the places marginalized, privileged white people go when they're "working" to read about really important stuff.
She usually writes about titillating topics like a photo of a funny bulge in someone's pants, the Olsen Twins or whether or not McCauley Culkin is gay. BUT IT SELLS! 50-60K per day!! Why? It can't be the writing (lots of bullet points and short easy-to-pronounce words dominate the entries).
Why am I obsessed over this?
Because, it's a living. A darn good living for 10 or so entries a day (since she's a pro, she has a quota and stuff). I suspect, with that kind of exposure, all the contributors (site designers, hosting, etc.) are providing free services in exchange for advertising so the income is likely all profit. I run another site and fantasize about traffic like this (not here though, I like davesbeer's small audience). I guess I'll just keep probing search results and traffic and try to figure out the secret.
My obsession, however, is the site's public display of popularity, the Site Meter Stats. The free version of Site Meter gives a bunch of running stats (referrers, search terms, duration of visit between two consecutive places on the site); the administrator can set the meter to be public or private. I consider her Site Meter to be essentially a daily GDP indicator. When "Average per day" (visitors) approaches 60K, the workforce is present, accounted for and bored out of their minds. When the numbers are substantially lower, it's usually a holiday or weekend. It's one of the places marginalized, privileged white people go when they're "working" to read about really important stuff.
She usually writes about titillating topics like a photo of a funny bulge in someone's pants, the Olsen Twins or whether or not McCauley Culkin is gay. BUT IT SELLS! 50-60K per day!! Why? It can't be the writing (lots of bullet points and short easy-to-pronounce words dominate the entries).
Why am I obsessed over this?
Because, it's a living. A darn good living for 10 or so entries a day (since she's a pro, she has a quota and stuff). I suspect, with that kind of exposure, all the contributors (site designers, hosting, etc.) are providing free services in exchange for advertising so the income is likely all profit. I run another site and fantasize about traffic like this (not here though, I like davesbeer's small audience). I guess I'll just keep probing search results and traffic and try to figure out the secret.
posted by Dave at
6:01 AM
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