Monday, April 30, 2007

April Figures Show Slight Dip

The last day of April saw the second best day ever on the blog with 10, 757 uniques. After March's record month of 212,725 unique visitors, April saw a slight decline to 193,335. Easter is largely to blame, I think. The equivalent figure for April 2006 was 51,437. Page impressions were also down from March's 369,308 to 329,420. Here are my top 45 linking sites (ie incoming hits) for April. All these sites referred at least 100 people here. The arrows denote whether a site has moved up or down or stayed static since January...

1. Guido Fawkes 16.57% ↔ 2. ConservativeHome 11.37% ↔ 3. PoliticalBetting 6.4% ↔ 4. Tartan Hero 1.35% NEW 5. Daniel Finkelstein 1.19% ↑ 6. Slugger O'Toole ↑ 7. Biased BBC ↑ 8. Laurence Boyce NEW 9. Dizzy Thinks ↑ 10. Witanagemot ↑ 11. Web Cameron ↑ 12. Daily Referendum NEW 13. Prisoner's Voice NEW 14. Blairwatch ↓ 15. Paul Linford ↑ 16. Arsembly NEW 17. Tim Worstall ↑ 18. Ordovicius NEW 19. An Englishman's Castle ↓ 20. Bel is Thinking ↓ NEW 21. Prague Tory ↓ 22. Luke Akehurst ↑ 23. Islington Newmania ↑ 24. LibDem Voice ↑ 25. W4MP ↓ 26. Croydonian ↓ 27. Blamerbellbriefs NEW 28. Bob Piper NEW 29. UK Polling Report NEW 30. Justin Hinchcliffe NEW 31. A Conservative's Blog ↓ 32. Mikey's Tent of Reality ↔ 33. Liberal England ↓ 34. Campaign for an English Parliament ↑ 35. Labour Watch NEW 36. UCL Conservatives NEW 37. Tim Blair ↓ 38. Hoby Cartoons ↑ 39. Kerron Cross ↓ 40. Nogbad's View NEW 41. Hot, Ginger & Dynamite ↑ 42. House of Dumb NEW

Among those dropping out of the top linkers are Chase Me Ladies, National Review Corner, David Anthony Republic, British Bullshit Foundation, Small Dead Animals, Devil's Kitchen, Tory Radio, Adam Smith Institute, Political Opinions, Kiwiblog, Bryan Appleyard, Ellee Seymour, Fibdems, Brian Micklethwait, Stumbling & Mumbling

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's that bloody global warming tempting everyone outside !!

Now will you believe us about climate change !!

Laurence Boyce said...

The fact that my name appears in the list is perhaps indicative of the fact that such automated rankings are not necessarily all that useful. Allow me to explain.

I have a private test Blog which I use to compose text and articles, and for test purposes generally. I also maintain a list of links on my “Blog” which are useful to me. Whenever I wish to read the Iain Dale Blog, I invariably do so by clicking from my “Blog” – it’s a bit like a list of favourites which I can access from anywhere, and in a manner which ensures that I am automatically logged in to Blogger. But it is of absolutely no interest to anyone else, and indeed if you click on the link, you will see that it is private.

I would quite like my name to be removed from this list because it really indicates nothing except perhaps that I am an obsessive reader of this Blog, and that I reach it in what is perhaps a slightly unusual way.

Scott M said...

So one referrer manages to reach no. 8 in your list, even though all clicks come from a single source (as Laurence's comment suggests).

And yet Bloggerheads, which was at no. 6 in your similar chart a month ago, has disappeared completely.

You're not being honest at all, are you?

And does it have anything to do with the fact that you're (badly) attempting to ruin the user experience of visitors to your site if they've come from a site you don't happen to agree with -- regardless of whether or not they would agree with the opinions voiced on that site?

If you want to portray yourself as a professional blogger, I would have thought a degree of professionalism would be in order. Acts such as wilfully distorting your chart figures and preventing people from linking to specific blog entries are highly unbecoming.

Laurence Boyce said...

Interesting. I’m very much inclined to think that Iain is a good egg, but there does undeniably appear to be some “dodgy code” at the start of his template. But you’d have to say that it’s not exactly very well hidden, which would be easy to do. And it’s probably not his handiwork either. Still, no need to let that stand in the way of a good story.

Iain Dale in dodgy template shocker!!!

Iain Dale said...

Scott, I have made no secret of the fact that since the March figures I have banned Tim Ireland from my site. That includes links to him. Simple as that. If you have followed what he has said about me you wouldn't be at all surprised. I make no apology for it. I'm simply not having him polluting this blog with his poison. He has plenty of his own sites to do that on.

It's nothing to do with not agreeing with him. It's about abuse. Watch him. He will now use this comment to write another poisonous post. See if I'm not right.

Scott M said...

Scott, I have made no secret of the fact that since the March figures I have banned Tim Ireland from my site. That includes links to him. Simple as that.

But you could reference where he comes in your chart without linking to him. That would be the honest thing to do, even if you don't want to link to him.

As it is, you've omitted figures and covered up that you've done so. If a Labour politician did that, you'd quite rightly be all over them. Should you not hold yourself up to a higher standard?

If you have followed what he has said about me you wouldn't be at all surprised. I make no apology for it.

You're right, I'm not at all surprised that you're not completely consistent. I've followed what he's said about you, which basically consists of pointing out things you've said, and how at times, you're not completely honest.

I'm simply not having him polluting this blog with his poison.

I've been reading this blog for a while. If any of the posts Tim has made could possibly be construed as poisonous, then there are far more noxious fumes coming from some of your regular -- and tolerated -- commenters.

It's nothing to do with not agreeing with him. It's about abuse. Watch him. He will now use this comment to write another poisonous post. See if I'm not right.

I do believe he's criticised distortion of that sort in the past. Good to know you're being consistent with your misdirection, if nothing else.

Now, can you answer this -- if Laurence's blog is private and used only by him, how can it have referred "at least 100 people"?

Iain Dale said...

Scott, I haven't the faintest idea. If it is only him clicking on it, it should be a maximum of 31. Seeing as you obviously think I have lied I would be happy to email you a screenshot from my statcounter if you let me have your email address.

Scott M said...

Fine - my email's scott [at] matthewman [dot] net.

FWIW, I suspect that whatever stats package you're using would be reporting the number of visits -- possibly even clicks -- coming from each referrer. Either of those are very different from 'visitor', which implies discrete individuals.

Don't sweat it -- I have to explain these concepts at work all the time, so I know they're often tricky for people to get their heads round. But accuracy wherever possible can, I'm sure you agree, prevent honest mistake becoming indistinguishable from dishonest distortion :)

Laurence Boyce said...

Maybe it’s because I click on this Blog far too much, and also from several different terminals. I don’t know how these things work. I’ll see if I can make it to number one next month!

Anonymous said...

"I have banned Tim Ireland from my site. That includes links to him."

But this isn't about links to him, is it? It's links from him. You're just trying to make it difficult for anyone to look at your blog, if they're coming from something Tim Ireland has said.

You're being really childish. It's the kind of behaviour you'd expect from a teenager who's just discovered the Internet. From a 44 year old who still seems to harbour ambitions in political journalism, it's incredible.