Northern Virginia Blog Traffic

Earlier I showed you these shocking numbers on blog traffic in Northern Virginia:

BVBL:  610 Readers a Day (36.0%)
NLS:  572 Readers a Day (33.8%)
RK:  511 Readers a Day (30.2%)

So where is this BVBL surge coming from?  Here are the results by locality:

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Arlington County
RK:  117 Readers a Day (52.5%)
NLS:  76 Readers a Day (34.1%)
BVBL:  30 Readers a Day (13.4%)

RK leads with over 50% here.
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Alexandria City
RK:  73 Readers a Day (51.4%)
NLS:  46 Readers a Day (32.4%)
BVBL:  23 Readers a Day (16.2%)

RK really does well inside the beltway.
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Fairfax County/City, Falls Church City
NLS:  332 Readers a Day (46.8%)
RK:  227 Readers a Day (32.0%)
BVBL:  150 Readers a Day (21.2%)

The NLS lead is pretty big here.  BVBL continues to grow and at this pace could be ahead of RK in Fairfax by the end of the year.
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Loudoun County
NLS:  43 Readers a Day (46.2%)
RK:  37 Readers a Day (40.0%)
BVBL:  13 Readers a Day (13.8%)

All the blogs could use some improvement in Loudoun.
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Prince William County/Manassas and Manassas Park City
BVBL:  394 Readers a Day (74.8%)
NLS:  76 Readers a Day (14.4%)
RK:  57 Readers a Day (10.8%)

Holy Crap.

Comments

[inside richmond]

How do you come up with the readers/day number? If it's every time I log on to the site, I must account for about 15/day of the Loudoun hits.

[Not Larry Sabato]

I'm not sure exactly how it all works, but I tried logging onto the sites multiple times and it only recorded me once per day- so from my end it worked well. I also talked to Lowell and Greg while I was doing it, and the data collected was making sense to what was going on. That's how I checked it- but consider these numbers with a little margin of error.

[inside richmond]

Hmm. I'd be interested to know what the Loudoun numbers are like for TC. I'd say that tends to be a big one for us.

[Loudoun Insider]

It's obvious where readers go for Loudoun information!!! Ben should ask Vincent to pull those numbers, he has access to all the server data. I'm always sending people to NLS and BVBL. RK, nooootsoomuuuuch.

[Not Larry Sabato]

LI- Just make your sitemeter data public and I will include TC next time I do this if the traffic is enough to calculate. Thanks.

[The Question]

Ben, did you use the "visits" or the "page views" metrics? There is a HUGE statistical difference in the two, perhaps enough for a follow up post :)

The following is from Sitemeter's FAQ. (Ben it seems that you check your blog more often than every 1/2 hour)

http://kb.sitemeter.com/entry/32/

When you are browsing a site, every time you follow a link to a new web page, it is treated as a single page view. Site Meter defines a visit as a series of page views by one person with no more than 30 minutes in between page views. If you click on a link to another site, and then come back to your site within 30 minutes, you are still on the same visit and Site Meter won't increment the counter. But Site Meter will increment the number of page views recorded for your current visit.

[cageyd]

Forget about the reliability of the statistics. Perhaps, just perhaps, BVBL has something to say that people want to hear.

[Not Larry Sabato]

I used visits.

[The Question]

Visits is most likely the better measure of the two.

I would recommend using analytics.google.com as that will track unique AND returning (daily or long term) visitors, separate from page views. So you will actually know how many unique individuals.

(then, it'll even add up the states, cities, etc... for you with a single click. It's a HUGE help.)

[Greg L]

Google analytics will never appear on BVBL, as it's notoriously unresponsive and really slows down page loads. As imperfect as sitemeter is, it's pretty apples-to-apples across sites and pretty widely used. I wish TC and Virtucon used it, as I would really like to see where they're fitting in here in NOVA. I imagine it's significant enough to measure, at least within NOVA.

[Loudoun Insider]

Vincent handles all that stuff and is busy with Huckabee. I just write!

What's the matter, Benny? Are you huddling with you buddy Joey on how to respond to Daily Whackjob outing him as the NAMBLA creep?

http://dailywhackjob.com/index.php/2007/08/23/joe-stanley-is-the-nambla-bandit/

[Mike]

Get NLS featured in a Post story like BVBL and you'll get similar traffic.

[Batson D. Belfrey]

Part of it, I believe is that BVBL's primary focus on PWC, Manassas City and Manassas Park politics and issues gives him such great popularity. The Manassas Journal Messenger and Pot News terrible newpapers. The editorial policy is not reflective of the residents. BVBL fills a need for local news and comment nto being met by the traditional media. That, and his blog is entertaining as well.

[David]

There's a need in your community for yellow journalism and ad hominem attacks?

Why?

[Mad Hatter]

When are you going to come up with a post defending the NAMBLA scandal?

[Democrats Think Child Sex Abuse Is Funny]

NAMBLA. Yes, pedophilia is a real laugh riot... At least apparently among certain DemocratICK circles.

Chalk this up to the "really really fat woman at Wal-Mart that you don't want to look at, but have to" syndrome.

Joe Stanley has admitted to his role in the NAMBLA scandal.

http://virginiavirtucon.wordpress.com/2007/08/23/joe-stanley-admits-role-in-scandal/