All posts tagged Open Parachute

The second largest bollocks in NZ

As soon as I saw this headline at The Daily Blog – Blog Rankings: TDB second largest blog in NZ – I knew what bollocks it was about.

And that bollocks continued in their lead paragraph and article.

The latest blog rankings are out, The Standard are no longer making their stats publicly available to Ken for the blog rankings and that makes The Daily Blog the second largest blog…

This election we intend to bring you commentary you can’t get in the right wing corporate mainstream media.

Last month lprent said he was ditching Sitemeter that Open Parachute basis it’s rankings on so is now off the list.

Looks like I might have to cut statcounter (one of our trackers) out of the site. It looks like they may be having some problems.

For a start, we’ve been getting some delays from statcounter over the last month not responding and slowing the page loads down. Something that is frigging irritating bearing in mind that only reason for having a visible tracker is to provide the Open Parachute ranking.

I’ll watch statcounter to the end of the month. If they continue to screw up then I’ll remove their drag on the site.

He must have discontinued before the end of the month. That doesn’t suddenly make The Standard smaller than TDB.

In March The Standard was slightly ahead of TDB in visits and well ahead (50% higher) in page views.

And Whale Oil will still be larger than any of these blogs by clicks. They dropped Sitemeter early last year.

Sitemeter and Open parachute have had obvious inaccuracies as well, so at best they are a rough comparative guide on those blogs that participate – many don’t, including a number of the biggest.

And I suspect some sites like Whale Oil and The Daily Blog are designed to force more clicks to be able to read full content.

And there’s other things that mess around with the numbers too. For example Alexa has some odd percentage of visitor numbers for TDB:

  • New Zealand 55.8%
  • France 17.8%
  • United States 7%
  • India 3.8%

That seems very low for New Zealand. Here it’s 77.3%, Kiwiblog is 77.5%, The Standard is 70.7%, Whale Oil is 63.8%.

All Open Parachute does is give blogs like The Daily Blog some bragging rights and a performance hit.

I’ve never cared about relative rankings here, I’m more interested in maintaining a manageable size with ease of use more important than click harvesting.

by Pete George on May 9, 2017  •  Permalink
Posted in Blogs, General
Tagged ,

Posted by Pete George on May 9, 2017

https://yournz.org/2017/05/09/the-second-largest-bollocks-in-nz/

Wane Oil

Whale Oil likes to talk up their ratings, and they have done that today in Another month, another good month, but things aren’t as good as they were.

They top the Open Parachute rankings again, but show a significant decline from January last year, while Kiwiblog, The Standard and The Daily Blog have all increased.

Whale Oil visits/month:

  • 2014 – 886,689
  • 2015 – 1,549,207
  • 2016 – 1,120,747

That’s a 28% decline from last year.

Whale Oil is in a league of it’s own compared to other blogs, being the only one that isn’t run as a hobby – revenue appears to be required to cover two incomes.

They sometimes present themselves as Whale Oil Media but they are also in a different league to the big media sites – ones they often criticise, especially the Herald but Newshub copped a blast today.

As a comparison Alexa has New Zealand rankings:

  • The Daily Blog – 1050th
  • YourNZ – 830th (which means take these rankings with a grain of salt)
  • The Standard – 669th
  • Kiwiblog – 324th
  • Whale Oil – 179th
  • Radio NZ – 153th
  • 3 News – 138th
  • One News – 25th
  • NZ Herald – 10th
  • Stuff – 7th

Whale Oil appears to be on the wane but are still doing well, especially relative to other blogs. However they are nowhere near competing at the top of New Zealand media – nor are they resourced or staffed anything like them, so they aren’t doing bad for a duo.

by Pete George on February 2, 2016  •  Permalink
Posted in Blogs, General
Tagged , ,

Posted by Pete George on February 2, 2016

https://yournz.org/2016/02/02/wane-oil/

Kiwiblog tops Open Parachute mess

Kiwiblog tops the blog rankings for this month but the numbers look very unreliable, highlighting the difficulties in measuring blog popularity.

Lynn Prentice foretold this two weeks ago in Kiwiblip!

Either Kiwiblog had a very large social media blip starting on the 19th, going into the 20th, and still running today in the early hours of the 21st. Or  something is really wrong with Sitemeter, or there is a irritating bug somewhere bloating the numbers.

David Farrar commented:

My ISP mentioned to me on the 19th there was a fairly serious DDOS attack from China. They blocked a dozen or so IP addresses. Looks like it has been ongoing.

Ironically Whale Oil numbers look ‘normal’ for them but some of the others look like nonsense.

Rank Blog Visits/month Page Views/month
1 Kiwiblog 1548697 3577649
2 Whale Oil 1330186 2800038
3 The Standard 238368 501340
4 The Daily Blog 174442 288345
5 No Right Turn 101646 532892
6 OracleNZ by Francisco Munoz Alvarez 61225 71566
7 Liberation 35155 191265
8 Sciblogs 34619 230987
9 Liturgy 21606 34118
10 No Minister 17655 23198

The last two look about what I’d expect, and The Standard and The Daily Blog look about where they would normally be, but other numbers are huge compared to past months.

Here is the May top ten:

Rank Blog Visits/month Page Views/month
1 Whale Oil 1295015 2760736
2 Kiwiblog 337504 606379
3 The Standard 253030 537315
4 The Daily Blog 189390 315321
5 Auckland Transport Blog 44076 45167
6 The Dim-Post 42253 56863
7 Sciblogs 36117 46908
8 NewZeal 25167 32534
9 Liturgy 24819 40495
10 No Right Turn 22717 30555

The Open Parachute blog rankings for June are nonsense, as they acknowledge.

Big problems with Sitemeter

The problems with SiteMeter are even worse this month. No data could be obtained for about 50 blogs using SiteMeter. People have also reported strange results. So if you wish to query the information in the table I suggest you check out the data in the SiteMeter pages.

So blog rankings look more unreliable than usual.

Your NZ has had a record month according to the internal stats:

YourNZAug-June2015The actual numbers are hard to compare so I usually just watch movements.

Thanks for your interest and support.

by Pete George on July 2, 2015  •  Permalink
Posted in Blogs
Tagged , ,

Posted by Pete George on July 2, 2015

https://yournz.org/2015/07/02/kiwiblog-tops-open-parachute-mess/

The Daily Blog spike

The Daily Blog is has congratulated itself for a record month of hits last month, beating Kiwiblog on the April Open Parachute blog ranking, the first time a left wing blog has done this.

Milestone for The Daily Blog

For the first time in NZ Blogging history, Kiwiblog has been beaten by a left wing blog.

…few people believe Whaleoil’s numbers are real, so Kiwiblog has been number 1 or 2 since the blog rankings began and this is the first time it’s been third.

Many thanks to our readership and our bloggers.

Fair enough. Something they can be proud of. But this was due to one thing, the Amanda Bailey/John Key ponytail pulling story. With the right stories it’s easy enough to get spikes in numbers. It’s much harder to sustain those numbers.

Here’s the numbers for the last few months:

  • September: visits 504,304 page views 813,779
  • October: visits 210,877 page views 347,647
  • November: visits 160,716 page views 259,736
  • December: visits 126,534 page views 203,1264
  • January 2015: visits 116,155 page views 188,868
  • February visits 121,994 page views 205,870
  • March visits 163,445 page views 274,075
  • April: visits 353,964 page views 511,527

So April was over double March.

Weepus Beard commented:

Congrats on the visits/month stat, and the statistics king David Farrar will be seething at his demotion.

I’m surprised he hasn’t congratulated TDB himself but then he only comments on/misrepresents stats that support his own narrow, right wing view of the world. He deliberately ignores/misrepresents any stats which damages that view or supports any socially responsible view of the world.

Strange to turn congratulations for The Daily Blog into baseless diss of Farrar. And it should be noted that The Daily Blog beat Kiwiblog on just one of the two measures.

  • Kiwiblog April 2015: visits 311,709 page views 566,587

Kiwiblog still had 10% more page views. And Open Parachute is just one way of ranking sites. Currently Alexa shows:

  • Kiwiblog – rank in New Zealand 273, global rank 135,533
  • The Daily Blog – rank in New Zealand 868, global rank 283,412
  • The Standard – rank in New Zealand 1,489, global rank 364,133
  • Whale Oil – rank in New Zealand 138, global rank 79,442

Weepus Beard continues:

I’d like to say though that these very encouraging views per month are not translating into comments. The heart of a blog is in it’s commentators and some improvements could be made on the back of this result.

TDB authors are the equal and in some cases way better than The Standard authors but this does not seem to make much of a difference.

I’m not qualified in blog studies to know what improvements might be made to increase the number of comments left here at TDB.

There’s a number of major reasons why The Daily Blog usually gets significantly fewer comments than The Standard and Kiwiblog.

Weepus Beard comes up with one of them:

Aha! I think I’ve got it. One of the reasons why TDB visits do not translate into comments is…

…real socially conscious people with real social,ly conscious comments to make do not like their having their comments stuck in moderation for hours upon hours as if we were mistrusted right wing trolls.

No one likes their comments going straight into limbo, having to wait until a moderator gets around to publishing it.

That’s if they release it. The Daily Blog has a reputation for ‘disappearing’ comments that it doesn’t like. Martyn Bradbury has been known as a site censor and comment manipulator for a long time.

And:

  • It takes time to build up a commenting community (especially with the above practices). The Standard and Kiwiblog have been going much longer than The Daily Blog, and people tend to stay with what they are familiar unless there’s a compelling reason to switch favourite commenting communities.
  • The Daily Blog’s target market tends far left. Bradbury has associated himself with small parties and narrow interests, like Mana and the Internet Party. The Standard has Labour and Green and Mana supporters, a much wider catchment.
  • Bradbury has a credibility problem, often being an over the top ranter who is wide of the mark in his claims and predictions.
  • After the disappointment of the last election there was much less frequent posting at The Daily Blog.Number of posts is a significant factor in number of visits, number of views and number of comments.

The Daily Blog deserves some statistical glory for their April results, but that doesn’t mean it will become a sustained recovery. See what May’s rankings are to see how much it settles back, unless they manage to break another big story.

by Pete George on May 4, 2015  •  Permalink
Posted in Blogs
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by Pete George on May 4, 2015

https://yournz.org/2015/05/04/the-daily-blog-spike/

Blog rankings – April 2015

The Daily Blog

  • September: visits 504,304 page views 813,779
  • October: visits 210,877 page views 347,647
  • November: visits 160,716 page views 259,736
  • December: visits 126,534 page views 203,1264
  • January 2015: visits 116,155 page views 188,868
  • February visits 121,994 page views 205,870
  • March visits 163,445 page views 274,075
  • April: visits 353,964 page views 511,527

Boosted substantially by a single topic – John Key versus the waitress.

Whale Oil Beef Hooked

  • September: visits 3,716,364 page views 5,309,045
  • October: visits 2,008,487 page views 3,275,031
  • November: visits 1,776,421 page views 2,981,810
  • December: visits 1,764,050 page views 2,999,841
  • January 2015: visits 1,549,207 page views 2,771,035
  • February 2015: visits 1,697,269 page views 2,947,932
  • March 2015: visits 1,497,906 page views 2,669,703
  • April 2015: visits 1,275,864 page views 2,708,282

Visits continue to slide. It remains a mystery why Whale Oil still has over twice the numbers of any other New Zealand blog when it doesn’t seem to do much different, except for the number of posts per day which is much higher. That may be what keeps the numbers up.

Kiwiblog

  • September: visits 695,190 page views 1,093,806
  • October: visits 373,637 page views 604,405
  • November: visits 301,119 page views 522,519
  • December: visits 278,787 page views 515,827
  • January 2015: visits 232,512 page views 447,489
  • February 2015: visits 299,472 page views 541,919
  • March 2015: visits 322,036 page views 579,501
  • April 2015: visits 311,709 page views 566,587

A slight drop but one day less in the month may account for that.

The Standard

  • September: visits 429,438 page views 868,342
  • October: visits 255,449 page views 561,703
  • November: visits 194,646 page views 431,100
  • December: visits 182,211 page views 392,090
  • January 2015: 163,164 page views 356,129
  • February 2015: 189,833 page views 417,128
  • March 2015: 232,651 page views 490,905
  • April 2015: 226,436 page views 483,101

Steady taking into account one less day than March.

—

Note that these are a rough measure. They can be useful to monitor trends on a blog but the value of comparing blogs is debatable. Sitemeter can vary significantly from other measures.

Note: not all blogs supply Open Parachute with site statistics, notably Public Address and Pundit.

Open Parachute sitemeter rankings:

by Pete George on May 2, 2015  •  Permalink
Posted in Blogs
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by Pete George on May 2, 2015

https://yournz.org/2015/05/02/blog-rankings-april-2015/

Blog rankings – March

Whale Oil Beef Hooked

  • September: visits 3,716,364 page views 5,309,045
  • October: visits 2,008,487 page views 3,275,031
  • November: visits 1,776,421 page views 2,981,810
  • December: visits 1,764,050 page views 2,999,841
  • January 2015: visits 1,549,207 page views 2,771,035
  • February 2015: visits 1,697,269 page views 2,947,932
  • March 2015: visits 1,497,906 page views 2,669,703

A surprise to see that down. Last month ‘Whaleoil Staff’ posted: “February is always the last month of slow results”. March may have been affected by cricket (but there were busy comments on cricket posts) and boxing distractions.

Kiwiblog

  • September: visits 695,190 page views 1,093,806
  • October: visits 373,637 page views 604,405
  • November: visits 301,119 page views 522,519
  • December: visits 278,787 page views 515,827
  • January 2015: visits 232,512 page views 447,489
  • February 2015: visits 299,472 page views 541,919
  • March 2015: visits 322,036 page views 579,501

In comparison that’s up a bit, and the highest since October/November.

The Standard

  • September: visits 429,438 page views 868,342
  • October: visits 255,449 page views 561,703
  • November: visits 194,646 page views 431,100
  • December: visits 182,211 page views 392,090
  • January 2015: 163,164 page views 356,129
  • February 2015: 189,833 page views 417,128
  • March 2015: 232,651 page views 490,905

Little cricket, no boxing but the by-election will have helped lift here significantly.

The Daily Blog

  • September: visits 504,304 page views 813,779
  • October: visits 210,877 page views 347,647
  • November: visits 160,716 page views 259,736
  • December: visits 126,534 page views 203,1264
  • January 2015: 116,155 page views 188,868
  • February 121,994 page views 205,870
  • March 163,445 page views 274,075

Some recovery there after a post=election slump.

Note that these are a rough measure. They can be useful to monitor trends on a blog but the value of comparing blogs is debatable.

Sitemeter can vary significantly from other measures. For example No Minister was ranked 11 with 23,215 page views but their own counter shows:

Last 30 Days Pageviews

Sparkline 92,048

The 30 day count was similar yesterday. That’s a huge difference to Open Parachute.

Note: not all blogs supply Open Parachute with site statistics, notably Public Address and Pundit.

Open Parachute sitemeter rankings:

by Pete George on April 1, 2015  •  Permalink
Posted in Blogs
Tagged , , , , , , ,

Posted by Pete George on April 1, 2015

https://yournz.org/2015/04/01/blog-rankings-march/

Blog rankings February 2015

February is a short month and the political year has just been cranking up. Blog stats at Open Parachute generally reflect this (although Your NZ hit a record high, beating the election months).

Whale Oil Beef Hooked

  • September: visits 3,716,364 page views 5,309,045
  • October: visits 2,008,487 page views 3,275,031
  • November: visits 1,776,421 page views 2,981,810
  • December: visits 1,764,050 page views 2,999,841
  • January 2015: visits 1,549,207 page views 2,771,035
  • February 2015: visits 1,697,269 page views 2,947,932

Kiwiblog

  • September: visits 695,190 page views 1,093,806
  • October: visits 373,637 page views 604,405
  • November: visits 301,119 page views 522,519
  • December: visits 278,787 page views 515,827
  • January 2015: visits 232,512 page views 447,489
  • February 2015: visits 299,472 page views 541,919

David Farrar was away on holiday in January and not posting for about a week.

The Standard

  • September: visits 429,438 page views 868,342
  • October: visits 255,449 page views 561,703
  • November: visits 194,646 page views 431,100
  • December: visits 182,211 page views 392,090
  • January 2015: 163,164 page views 356,129
  • February 2015: 189,833 page views 417,128

March may suffer unless they find someone else to obsess about in my absence (TIC).

The Daily Blog

  • September: visits 504,304 page views 813,779
  • October: visits 210,877 page views 347,647
  • November: visits 160,716 page views 259,736
  • December: visits 126,534 page views 203,1264
  • January 2015: 116,155 page views 188,868
  • February 121,994 page views 205,870

Note: not all blogs supply Open Parachute with site statistics, notably Public Address and Pundit.

These are all half or less than their election peaks. ‘Whaleoil Staff’ have posted:

February is always the last month of slow results.  We’re all enjoying the last of the warm weather, and the end-of-day daylight before the clocks go back again.   Various days off with anniversary days and Waitiangi day.  Add that to a short month, and we never get to see the number we expect to see.

Not so here.

Your NZ is more modest overall but is going up. We would easily make the Open Parachute top ten if WordPress stats are equivalent (there’s debate about that). The trend looks good:

YourNZstatsFebruary2015YourNZ (WordPress stats) to February 2015

Time will tell whether the record high in February is a temporary bump or if it’s a trend upwards.

So thanks to all those who come here to read my news snippets and musings, and thanks especially to those who join in the discussions. This is a team effort – your involvement helps me look forward to getting up at five in the morning to add a wee bit to the political discussions.

—

Open Parachute sitemeter rankings:

by Pete George on March 3, 2015  •  Permalink
Posted in Blogs
Tagged , , , ,

Posted by Pete George on March 3, 2015

https://yournz.org/2015/03/03/blog-rankings-february-2015/

Blog rankings January 2015

Rankings for the main political blogs that are registerd with Open Parachute. January is typically a lot quieter due to holidays and very little politics happening.

Whale Oil Beef Hooked

  • September: visits 3,716,364 page views 5,309,045
  • October: visits 2,008,487 page views 3,275,031
  • November: visits 1,776,421 page views 2,981,810
  • December: visits 1,764,050 page views 2,999,841
  • January 2015: visits 1,549,207 page views 2,771,035

Kiwiblog

  • September: visits 695,190 page views 1,093,806
  • October: visits 373,637 page views 604,405
  • November: visits 301,119 page views 522,519
  • December: visits 278,787 page views 515,827
  • January 2015: visits 232,512 page views 447,489

David Farrar was away on holiday in January and not posting for about a week.

The Standard

  • September: visits 429,438 page views 868,342
  • October: visits 255,449 page views 561,703
  • November: visits 194,646 page views 431,100
  • December: visits 182,211 page views 392,090
  • January 2015: 163,164 page views 356,129

The Daily Blog

  • September: visits 504,304 page views 813,779
  • October: visits 210,877 page views 347,647
  • November: visits 160,716 page views 259,736
  • December: visits 126,534 page views 203,1264
  • January 2015: 116,155 page views 188,868

Not all blogs supply Open Parachute with site statistics, notably Public Address and Pundit.

Open Parachute sitemeter rankings:

by Pete George on February 1, 2015  •  Permalink
Posted in Blogs
Tagged , , ,

Posted by Pete George on February 1, 2015

https://yournz.org/2015/02/01/blog-rankings-january-2015/

Blog rankings – Open Parachute and Alexa

Open Parachute ranks blogs using Sitemeter data. It ranks by visitor numbers but also shows page views. But it only includes blogs that advise it of their use of Sitemeter.

Here are the Open Parachute rankings with another measure, Alexa, that ranks the ‘popularity’ of websites. Here I’ve added the Alexa New Zealand ranking (they also have a world ranking). Some blogs are not ranked in New Zealand, and those using Blogspot without their own URL aren’t ranked.

  1. Whale oil beef hooked – NZ 141 global 62,870
  2. Kiwiblog – NZ 273 global 126,932
  3. The Standard – NZ 1,508 global 370,486
  4. Transport Blog – NZ 597 global 229,823
  5. The Daily Blog – NZ 2,519 global 384,979
  6. Liturgy – global 131,977
  7. NewZeal – global 8,926,946 (Blogspot)
  8. The Dim-Post – global 1,017,602
  9. Offsetting Behaviour – global 5,024,570 (Blogspot)
  10. No Right Turn – global 7,221,272  (Blogspot)
  11. Throng New Zealand – global 639,648
  12. No Minister – no individual rank
  13. Fields of Blood – global 6,852,026
  14. Music of sound – global 1,245,973
  15. Homepaddock – global 3,260,297 (WordPress)
  16. 13th Floor – global 3,183,648
  17. The REAL Steve Gray – global 1,356,077
  18. Liberation – global 2,018,066
  19. Keith Johnson Wellington NZ – global 16,448,546 (blogspot)
  20. MandM – global 3,149,344
  21. Hot Topic – global 1,791,224
  22. TVHE – global 3,349,046
  23. Imperator Fish – NZ 6,245 global 1,768,443
  24. Right Reason – global 3,332,347
  25. Open Parachute – global 1,552,518

The Blogspot global ranks look out of synch with other rankings. Online discussions suggest there can be a lot of variation between different site statistic counters.

Blogs not ranked by Open Parachute:

  • Public Address – NZ 3,773 global 532,328
    (that’s interesting because Russell puts their visits/pageviews around Standard/Daily Blog)
  • Sciblogs – global 754,845
  • Pundit – global 956,626
  • The Conservative – NZ 4,564 global 1,075,470
  • Your NZ – NZ 7,049 global 1,339,526
  • Whoar (Phil Ure) Global 6,017,010

Other blogs that come to mind are Lindsay Mitchell, Bat-Bean-Beam, NZ Conservative are not ranked separately.

The Greens Frog Blog is part of it’s website which ranks global 554,191 but oddly it’s country rank is for India.

While they may or may not be directly comparable if WordPress statistics are similar to Sitemeter (WordPress say they count differently) then YourNZ would be in the top 20 for visits and the top 10 for page views.

This doesn’t take into account other active forums like Reddit and Trade Me.

New Zealand ranks on Alexa for media

Open Parachute: NZ Blog Rankings FAQ

by Pete George on January 3, 2015  •  Permalink
Posted in Blogs
Tagged , , ,

Posted by Pete George on January 3, 2015

https://yournz.org/2015/01/03/blog-rankings-open-parachute-and-alexa/

End of year blog rankings

Whale Oil Beef Hooked

  • September: visits 3,716,364 page views 5,309,045
  • October: visits 2,008,487 page views 3,275,031
  • November: visits 1,776,421 page views 2,981,810
  • December: visits 1,764,050 page views 2,999,841

Kiwiblog

  • September: visits 695,190 page views 1,093,806
  • October: visits 373,637 page views 604,405
  • November: visits 301,119 page views 522,519
  • December: visits 278,787 page views 515,827

The Standard

  • September: visits 429,438 page views 868,342
  • October: visits 255,449 page views 561,703
  • November: visits 194,646 page views 431,100
  • December: visits 182,211 page views 392,090

The Daily Blog

  • September: visits 504,304 page views 813,779
  • October: visits 210,877 page views 347,647
  • November: visits 160,716 page views 259,736
  • December: visits 126,534 page views 203,1264

Visits for the top three dropped a little in December which is to be expected.They are now all a bit under a half of the election month hits (September).

The Daily Blog has slumped to about a quarter (and The Transport Blog is now ranked ahead of it).

Not all blogs supply Open Parachute with site statistics, notably Public Address and Pundit.

Open Parachute sitemeter rankings:

by Pete George on January 2, 2015  •  Permalink
Posted in Blogs
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by Pete George on January 2, 2015

https://yournz.org/2015/01/02/end-of-year-blog-rankings/

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