Alexa.com ranks every major website on the internet based on traffic. I thought it would be an interesting new Monday feature to show where they have everyone currently ranked in the Virginia political blogosphere.
I'm only including sites ranked Silver/Gold or higher, and then only the sites Alexa tracks for significant traffic. If you are ranked at that level and not listed- take it up with them! If you aren't on this list because of the ranking here, take it up with me!
There are some surprises here:
#1- Not Larry Sabato- (Overall Internet Ranking is #707,965)
#2- Vivian Paige- (Overall Internet Ranking is #927,217)
#3- Raising Kaine- (Overall Internet Ranking is #1,015,502)
#4- Black Velvet Bruce Li- (Overall Internet Ranking is #1,236,271)
#5- Waldo Jaquith- (Overall Internet Ranking is #1,428,215)
#6- Richmond Sunlight- (Overall Internet Ranking is #1,841,585)
#7- Bearing Drift- (Overall Internet Ranking is #2,270,650)
#8- Daily Whackjob- (Overall Internet Ranking is #3,089,948)
#9- Too Conservative- (Overall Internet Ranking is #3,173,753)
#10- Republitarian- (Overall Internet Ranking is #4,749,783)
#11- 7-West- (Overall Internet Ranking is #4,806,635)
#12- Bacon's Rebellion- (Overall Internet Ranking is #5,593,874)
#13- West of Shockoe- (Overall Internet Ranking is #5,962,726)
#14- Spank That Donkey- (Overall Internet Ranking is #6,603,193)
One key note NLS: The visitor difference is MUCH greater in the bigger blogs. For example, Bacons is about 700,000 behind 7-west in ranking- but you are about 700,000 behind google.com.
So as you move up- the difference between the top blogs is MUCH greater.
Posted by: | February 20, 2007 at 02:00 AM
Hmmm... no data on vbdems.org. ... I'll have to fix that. Thanks for the heads-up, NLS.
Posted by: eileen | February 20, 2007 at 07:10 AM
I am not one bit surprised that Vivian has done so well.
Almost everything she writes is with substance, and she is not in the game of bullying, one-up-ing, and partisan mudslinging.
Congrats, Vivian.
Posted by: | February 20, 2007 at 07:19 AM
But, then again, 7:19 could be providing yet another explanation why we aren't listed. ;)
Posted by: eileen | February 20, 2007 at 07:21 AM
Proof yet again that Vivian Paige should be a platinum blog.
Posted by: bwana | February 20, 2007 at 07:24 AM
Just thought that I would mention that GoodbyeJim.com is the real #5 at 1,378,009.
I feel I owe a lot of that to Waldo. His magnificent VAPoliticalBlogs.com website extends the reach of us all.
Posted by: Jonathan Mark | February 20, 2007 at 07:28 AM
"Platinum" blog Raw Fisher didn't make the cut, eh? Makes no sense...
Posted by: | February 20, 2007 at 07:42 AM
Total 15,977
Average Per Day 83
Average Visit Length 1:29
Last Hour 3
Today 13
This Week 579
From the West of Shockoe site meter.
I know Spank That Donkey is doing better than that as are many others not listed.
Any thoughts on the difference Ben?
Posted by: Kilo | February 20, 2007 at 07:57 AM
Sweet. I am sandwiched between some hot awesomeness.
Posted by: phriendlyjaime | February 20, 2007 at 08:05 AM
*pats self on the back*
As an independent blog who is buried in a blog challenged area, I protest my ranking on this site.
If the above is true about Jamie's average visits...
I get over twice the number visits Jaime does.
Of course, this(blog rankings on this site) is all subject to who gets cookies from my wife....
Posted by: republitarian | February 20, 2007 at 08:44 AM
Jaime can I have permission to write down that quote and reproduce it at random times irregardless of context? I laughed pretty hard when i saw it.
Posted by: JMU Duke | February 20, 2007 at 08:46 AM
JMU-YES, feel free.
I WANT COOKIES!!!!!!!
Posted by: phriendlyjaime | February 20, 2007 at 09:04 AM
I am headed out to the auto body shop for my poor baby car, but in case anyone is interested it's free pancake day.
http://www.ihop.com/tellafriend.php
Posted by: phriendlyjaime | February 20, 2007 at 09:09 AM
You should do a graphic, Ben. The difference between #1 and #14 is HUGE.
Posted by: | February 20, 2007 at 09:15 AM
How does one’s blog move up from Silver. The Virginian Federalist, www.vafederalist.blogspot.com would love to have some CONSTRUCTIVE criticism.
Posted by: Publius | February 20, 2007 at 09:18 AM
You couldn't make me eat IHOP pancakes if they paid me, let alone if they are free. ACK!
Posted by: Ghost of A.L. Philpott | February 20, 2007 at 09:22 AM
Just in case anyone is interested on how to be listed in the Alexa directory:
http://dmoz.org/add.html
Follow the instructions. If you're not here, Amazon.com doesn't know you exist.
Step 2: Try again next week!
Posted by: Shaun Kenney | February 20, 2007 at 09:27 AM
Sigh...I've got work to do. Still, I've only had my own domain name since July...
Posted by: Ward Smythe | February 20, 2007 at 09:28 AM
Virginia Virtucon is ranked 4,040,078
according to them today. That would land us at #10 -- by near 750,000 spaces -- if we were above Silver.
Posted by: Riley, Not O'Reilly | February 20, 2007 at 09:28 AM
And it turns out we're not even listed in the Alexa directory.
Posted by: Riley, Not O'Reilly | February 20, 2007 at 09:41 AM
Please, please do not make this a regular feature. It will not help . . . well, anything.
[been there, done that in too many communities]
Posted by: MB | February 20, 2007 at 10:32 AM
Shaun,
Thanks for the tip.
Posted by: Publius | February 20, 2007 at 10:32 AM
I like the old (political) features such as the warner of the week and the senate district profiles.
Can we please get back to those quality features that are only delivered here instead of copying content from another source?
Posted by: Hamilton | February 20, 2007 at 10:33 AM
I was also wondering what happened to the Warners and the Weenies. I liked those.
Yes, I am already back from the auto body shop. They can't fit me in until 3/12/07. Damn you, hit and runner; damn you.
Posted by: phriendlyjaime | February 20, 2007 at 10:49 AM
Before y'all get too excited, keep in mind that the Alexa stats are driven by users who have installed the Alexa toolbar.
Have you installed it? I haven't.
Posted by: | February 20, 2007 at 11:00 AM
I don't have their toolbar.
Posted by: Not Larry Sabato | February 20, 2007 at 11:02 AM
For some reason, I can't view mine on there. It just shows blogger's stats rather than those of my site. No clue why.
Posted by: Dannyboy | February 20, 2007 at 11:51 AM
FWIW, Alexa's rankings are based on a user pool that almost entirely excludes Safari (i.e., Mac users) and Firefox (unless someone has gone through the trouble to find and install the Alexa extension). As has been noted on other sites, Alexa can be a useful tool to determine trends with respect to your own site, but once you start comparing it to others, you're on rather thin ice.
Posted by: MB | February 20, 2007 at 01:39 PM
MB, is there any evidence that Safari or Firefox users are signifigantly different from other internet users?
Posted by: Not Larry Sabato | February 20, 2007 at 01:41 PM
I think Brian Scrafford should be moved up to at least Silver/Gold. He's arguably the most influential college blogger since vaprogressive is actually a group blog and Brian still covers more events and actually has candidates who trust him enough to speak with him.
Posted by: | February 20, 2007 at 02:07 PM
This just confirms what some of us have known all along. If RK is platinum material then Vivian most definitely is.
Posted by: whackette | February 20, 2007 at 02:11 PM
My quick answer is yes, but it's such a large question that I'm not sure what to point to, first. The more thoughtful answer says that there probably hasn't been a study of browser choice among political blog readers (the relevant crowd, here), but having been someone who has played around with traffic analysis for a decade, now, I'd bet that the exclusion of non-IE users *does* have an impact.
I'll poke around and come back, but if your listed blogs want to help answer that question, they could let us know what percentage of their users use IE.
Just throwing a semi-educated-full-of-stereotypes guess out there, I'll bet that Waldo has a significantly higher percentage of Mac users visiting his site than BVBL does. And in this case, that harms his Alexa ranking wrt BVBL.
In any event, it's all a bit of a wank, and not something I'd encourage people to think too much about. Traffic analysis is helpful in sorting out how to improve your own site, but it's just a (mostly unhelpful) distraction when you start using it to compare one site to another.
Posted by: MB | February 20, 2007 at 02:18 PM
MB, I disagree. If Virginia political blogs increase traffic by 20% in a month- but one blogger only goes up 5%- its important for them to know they aren't holding their "market share"
Posted by: Not Larry Sabato | February 20, 2007 at 02:20 PM
I am going to have to agree with NLS on this one. It is helpful to know where everyone stands. I would like to know why The Virginian Federalist is Silver. I am not saying it should or should not be but it would be nice to know what qualifies a blog as each category and what you, NLS, looks for when moving blogs up or down.
Posted by: Publius | February 20, 2007 at 02:42 PM
I was under the impression the rankings were based on quality, not on popularity.
Posted by: Hamilton | February 20, 2007 at 02:51 PM
I request that NLS downgrade my blog GoodbyeJim.com (Overall Internet Ranking is #1,378,009) one more spot to the "Crap" category. It would distinguish me from the other TOP FIVE ALEXA BLOGGERS.
I think that Alexa is a Korean company and its users are probably heavily Asian. You know, blogs about U.S. Rep. Jim Moran (VA-8) are very popular on the Pacific rim, Singapore, places like that. I feel that accounts for GoodbyeJim's high ranking here.
And Vivian, I've got your number!
Posted by: Jonathan Mark | February 20, 2007 at 04:24 PM
Well, that strikes me as akin to watching your bank account to keep an eye on your job performance, but to each his own . . .
~
And Publius, are you trying to start some reindeer games?
Posted by: MB | February 20, 2007 at 06:14 PM