Climate Conversation v. Hot Topic et al.
Richard Treadgold | April 11, 2012Alexa world-wide rankings
I bow to you, my reader.
As measured informally on my Alexa toolbar, you’ve raised this humble blog into a leading Kiwi site for sceptical discussion of global warming. Though many of you are silent and your participation limited to quiet reading, you’ve achieved a remarkable thing with your frequent loyal visits (I’ll be sure to keep the kettle hot).
It shows that north of sixty thousand visitors per month prefer a moderate tone over stridency and a restrained view of climate data better than a doomsday clamour. Large numbers! MSM, are you noticing?
In June last year there was a bit of a fuss over climate blog rankings and whether the numbers were reliable. Nothing to do with climate, of course.
Then a while back I reinstalled the Alexa toolbar, just out of interest. Apparently you have to give Alexa time to get settled information on your traffic, so I waited. Just now I noticed our world ranking is up to 844,719, having started at over 1.3 million. The NZ rank is under 900. Wow! So it’s time to tell you.
A few New Zealand climate-related blogs and their recent rankings according to Alexa. Lower numbers are better.
| 11 April 2012 | NZ rank | World rank | Sites linking in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Climate Conversation | 891 | 884,719 | 130 |
| SciBlogs | 1,985 | 407,649 | 748 |
| Open Parachute | 3,580 | 1,159,484 | 339 |
| Hot Topic | 6,800 | 1,561,172 | 339 |
Seems the Climate Conversation is twice as popular as Renowden’s Hot Topic, although Sciblogs, as befits their professional home in the Science Media Centre, their access to lots of scientists and indirect government sponsorship, are twice as good again.
I call the sponsorship indirect because the gov doesn’t pay for the blog, just for the media centre. But that’s manager Peter Griffin’s salary paid for, so he’s a professional journalist on site even in the quiet times. Can’t hurt.
I’m surprised to see that even Open Parachute outranks Hot Topic. I wonder if the extraordinary intolerance — even malice — over there, which seems so close to the surface under Renowden’s feisty rule, drive readers away? I wouldn’t be a bit surprised — it’s uniquely tasteless.
To put all this, and even the superior Sciblogs, into a sobering perspective, Watt’s Up With That’s world ranking today is 17,083 — in the stratosphere!
UPDATE 23 May
After some six weeks under the spell of the Alexa toolbar, our Climate Conversation weblog has risen in the world rankings to 518,763, fallen a little in the NZ rankings to 1076 and reports 147 sites linking in. The more people who install the Alexa toolbar, the more accurate this method of finding the rankings will become.
Congratulations Good will eventually defeat Gang Green.
Wouldn’t climate be a minor topic at SciBlogs?
Over summer for a while I monitored the Live Traffic Feed. It was fascinating watching the variety of country of origin and what people were reading by following outgoing links etc. Many of those links are from comments so I conclude that people use post and comments as something like a news aggregater to a degree. Fun too trying to guess who was lurking. I’m sure one of the regulars (perhaps the only one) from Waikato is Bryan Walker from Hot Topic keeping an eye on the opposition. Christchurch could be anyone but would include Andy and Gareth Renowden i think (unless Gareth just takes the post feed).
Top of the Live Traffic Feed list right now is Klofta, Akershus which I’m sure we can all point to on a map (ha!).
What puzzled me was the constant stream of visitors from Utrecht to ‘BOM Discovers UHI’. I’m wondering if someone like Pete Gosselin has a hotlink to that post on his homepage or something.
I looked up Klofta, Akershus on the map (one of your visitors RT). It’s about 30km NE of Oslo, Norway.
There’s a lotta lakes there.Check out this ‘List of lakes in Norway’:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lakes_in_Norway
Akershus is the county at the top of the list (only 15 lakes, Nordland has 139).
That’s amazing – 629 lakes for a country of 304,282 sq km land area. Ah – but New Zealand has 3820 lakes larger than one hectare and consists of only 262,443 sq km.
So Norway has 2.1 lakes per sq km; New Zealand has 14.6 lakes per sq km.
I guess it depends on what constitutes a “lake” e.g. the Norway list includes “reservoirs”.but I suspect that what gets counted in the NZ list as a lake does not in the Norway list.
What struck me was that after looking up Klofta on Google maps I zoomed out (e.g. to 10km scale) and the substantial lakes were clearly apparent but there are numerous small ponds (?) that if counted as lakes would easily eclipse the NZ figure. You can see what I mean by comparing Klofta with say Rotorua, Alexandra or Nelson Lakes National Park at the same 10km zoom resolution.
It must be a dream location for winter sports when the lakes freeze over for para skiing, ice sailing etc. Blokart here in Papamoa exports their land yachts to Europe with ice adaptions, see ICE BOATS by bloKart http://www.curtissportconnection.com/ice_boats_by_blokart.htm
I’m sure Andy would find something to do there.
Richard – I appreciate you apparent interest in how well a limited number of NZ blogs are doing. But it’s all been explained to you before – Alexa cannot be used for that.
The actual ranking of the blogs you mention in the March ’12 – NZ blogs sitemeter ranking were:
SciBlogsNZ – 7th
Hot Topic 19th
Open Parachute 24th
Climate Conversation didn’t rank because that blog does not allow access to their stats (the NZ ranking system is objective and simply based on automatic reporting of the blog visit and page view numbers).
Alexa and similar systems are not an estimate of blog visits, and ranking because they depend on installation (by the blog) of the Alexa Toolbar. Climate conversations has installed one, the other blogs haven’t. You yourself co0nfirm what the effect of your re installation was.
I think the conclusion is obvious.
Richard – if you have any interest in comparing the performance of the blogs you mention – what about installing a sitemeter or similar and allow access to, and reporting of, your actual stats?
I think you reaction to that question will indicate your degree of objectivity (and honesty).
Ken, I thought the Alexa toolbar was a client browser installation, independent of the site.
I agree that Alexa should be treated with caution, but I am not sure what you mean when you say “Climate Conversation installed one”.
Andy, read what Richard wrote:
“Then a while back I reinstalled the Alexa toolbar, just out of interest. Apparently you have to give Alexa time to get settled information on your traffic, so I waited. Just now I noticed our world ranking is up to 844,719, having started at over 1.3 million. “
He has simply noticed what many other bloggers have – installing the Alexa tool imprives your blog’s own ranking. That is a simple fact – and, of course, makes it doubly silly to try comparing his own Alexa blog ranking with those of blogs ewhich don’t have it installed.
Ken, thanks for your comments. The answer is indeed obvious – I’m not very interested in blog rankings. However, being interested in gratifying conversation, I congratulate you on almost completing a taunt-free comment. I should add that referring to my “degree of honesty” rather tainted your sincerity.
So Richard – you are “not very interested in blog rankings.”
Yet you post this article misusing Alexa ratings?
And all along you have a stacounter installed which you enables you to follow your own stats, but not allow anyone else to make the conmparsions you seem so interested in?
What’s that about honesty?
Pull the other one!
But no-onhe is suprised, are they?
Which one of your parents taught you your manners Ken, you mother or your father?
“And all along you have a stacounter installed which enables you to follow your own stats, but not allow anyone else to make the conmparsions you seem so interested in?”
Ken, you’re distorting your own comments. You just explained how Statcounter gives unreliable stats, now you want me to release them? My lack of understanding should not be construed as misusing; I described the stats as informal. As I said, I installed Statcounter out of interest, just not very much interest. Honestly!
On the subject of HT, I have had a little discussion with some resident wind enthusiasts who are pushing the 20% figure for percentage of wind generation in NZ
It was claimed that South Australia has over 20% wind, but when you crunch the numbers for the whole of Australia, the percentage of wind power is just over 1%. Furthermore, the current MW generated by SA is 2.2 that of NZ
So my next question was this:
Are there any autonomous grids that have 20% wind generation?
The answers were, yes, these:
- The Falkland Islands
- The Canaries
The Falklands only have a population of around 3000, so they are probably not representative.
The Canaries (and Hawaii) get the Trade Winds, so they get a lot of consistent, strong wind (which is why they are popular with windsurfers).
In other words, there are no precedents for this 20% figure other than a series of islands in the trade wind zone and a tiny Island in the south Atlantic.
Richard – lay off the sherry – it’s too early in the day. You are confused.
My criticism was of Alexa – not statcounter. My experience is that statcounter and sitemeter give approximately equal visit and page view stats. They seem reliable. Alexa ranking is distorted and not related to visit numbers (as you your self have shown with your list in this post).
You have had statcounter installed for a long time – and show a figure connected to that. It is not the visit numbers or the page views. But it would be simple to include you in the NZ rankings using your already installed statcounter.
No skin off my nose that you are unwilling. But could you please explain to your commenters, like Magoo back in March, who believe that I have somehow excluded you from the ranking list. People like him appear to want you to appear in the NZ list, and I am not stopping you.
I haven’t, I wouldn’t. You have excluded yourself. Make that clear to your commenters.
To repeat.
Statcounter is reliable, you have it installed but won’t share the stats.
Alexa ranking is unreliable, influenced by installation of the Alexa toolbar (as you admit), not related to visit numbers. You are crowing about the Alexa – not Statcounter – results.
I am happy to include your statcounter stats in the NZ blog rankings – it’s up to you, I don’t care either way.
The NZ Blog ranking list is automatic, is not influenced by me, or anyone else, at all. Please don’t allow your commenters to slander my objectivity in that undertaking.
Sorry, Ken, I’ve made a pig’s ear of this, haven’t I? I confused Alexa with Statcounter, and I shouldn’t have. Having alcohol as a scapegoat would have been clever, but there’s none here.
You’re right, I have Statcounter installed, and (you’re right again) I’m not sharing the results. The reason for not sharing is that they bear only a distant relation to the site statistics available from cPanel so I don’t trust them.
I don’t have to explain anything about your blog rankings to my readers, nor have I commented on them, but thank you for dropping in to explain it yourself.
You don’t “trust” your statcounter results – why?
Because they don’t fit your illusions perhaps?
Well, don’t pretend that your are comparing your data with those of others who do use statcounter, sitemeter, etc.
Apples and oranges, my friend.
Go Climate Conversation Group! Go New Zealand! Whoohoo! One day I will join you, my South Pacific friends in the glorious lands of NZ (was there a year ago actually)… but for now I check in and comment when I have something useful to say. By the by, I am one of the people who occasionally looks on you from Houston, TX, or from Utica, MI, (depending on if i”m at work or home) in the formerly-good’ol US(S)A. The “D” in my name stands for Detroit, Michigan. Just so you know.