traffic rank

Last weekend, both Linux Today and Linux.com provided links and excerpts to an article I posted here at CMS Report.  You can see some of the stats on my newly quantified site at quantcast.com.  While those managing large sites shouldn't be too impressed with those numbers, I'm personally pleased with the current level of traffic this little 'ol site of mine is seeing.  I'm not only "Wowed" with the number of people visiting my site to read the posts, but I'm also grateful for the opportunity to learn from those of you that leave some quality comments for all to consider.

More importantly, this past weekend's traffic bump was the first real test I had for CMSReport.com since it's been hosted on the new VPS.  I've done very little tweaking of the VPS, so I'm looking forward to seeing how much I'll be able to improve the server's performance once I find some free time.  Either way, it is very doubtful that CMSReport.com would have stayed up under the previous shared hosting plan.  The VPS gives me a lot of room for growth...oh yea!

So you want to write a successful blog?  Or perhaps just have a successful Website that people actually visit?  Lorelle reminds us just how to make your blog of interest to others.

I have many friends raised within countries which still play by these rules, where you are and do what your father or mother did, and maybe your grandparents before you, not what you want to do. Where apprenticeship programs are the only way into a trade. Where you are tested and found competent for a specific job, not because your heart leads the way.

While many get preoccupied with how to make money blogging, we forget that online journaling and blogging began as a way to share our lives with others. To teach. To share as we learn. But most of all, to share our passions through our words, images, and sounds.

BusinessWeek published an interesting article titiled, Did MySpace Really Beat Yahoo? The article discusses the difficulty to confirm which site actually has more traffic, MySpace or Yahoo.

The discrepancy has revived complaints about the accuracy of reporting agencies' results, which often differ from companies' own audience measurements (see BusinessWeek.com, 10/23/06, "Web Numbers: What's Real"). It also underscores the rivalry between comScore and Nielsen//NetRatings for recognition as the most trusted source for Web-traffic data. The winner, if one emerges, may set the standard for how site popularity is measured, influencing how marketers dole out billions in online ad dollars each year. Recognizing the high stakes in that tussle, comScore and Nielsen//NetRatings both are refining their tactics.

Initially, you might say, "who cares, the sites I design won't compete with these big dogs". But consider this, there is not a client or site owner that doesn't want to see more traffic with their sites. The client already knows how many users they were getting with the old site. What happens if the client now observes that the site you redesigned gets less traffic? At least, less traffic according to the the statistic package they are using. Either way, the client isn't happy and wants to know what you're going to do to correct the problem?

Did the design changes you made really chase the site's users away? Is there something in the stats package that don't account the traffic correctly due to the new features you added? These type of questions you need to be able to answer convincingly and without hesitation.

A couple weeks ago I mentioned that Alexa, a Web search and site statistics company, had wrongly merged CMS Report with a couple other unrelated sites under uly.net. At the time my traffic rank stood at 218,200. Luckily, Alexa has a procedure that lets you contact them so they can separate your site from the other sites.

In that story, I also mentioned that:

Ironically, my site may initially be worse off in Alexa's traffic ranks by separating it as its own site. Once my site is separated from the other sites I'm not so sure the 98% of the traffic I've contributed in the past to uly.net's ranking will travel to cmsreport.com.

Well my conjecture wasn't wrong. Earlier this week, as promised by Alexa cmsreport.com became its own site under their traffic ranks.

Initially, CMS Report, was given a three month traffic ranking of 830,790 which would be close to a 400% drop in Alexa's traffic ranking. Currently, I couldn't be happier. That's because my weekly stats were ranked around 125,000 which indicates a promising future for this site and my stats through Alexa.

Listed below are my current statistics with Alexa.com. Hopefully by the time you read this my three month stats with Alexa will be much better than my initial week with them. As of this writing, Alexa still has to update their screenshot for cmsreport.com. Disclaimer: clicking on images forwards you to Amazon's review site.