For those of you spending cash advertising on sites and blogs that use blog-city (dude what are you thinking?!?) might be interested in LLB’s blog post…
Blog Stats
It seems like the blog-city peeps are in a panic because their stats are lower (which many I guess base the rates they charge people). Blog-city explained to them that the counter they were uses counted bots. In case you don’t know…
llb quotes the blog-city explanation that sort of sums it up well…
The majority of your hits come from automatic bots and search engines. For example, Google is your biggest culprit, they will come in and happily crawl your site daily if it feels it needs to. MSN is another huge crawler that will over crawl your site.
After the article is where I get lost, is she saying that there are no worries for AAR because they have the history to fall back on? The bot-filled history? Err isn’t that a bad thing to draw off of?
I mean I know each stat counter is different and almost everyone will give you a different number for the same day. Of course one of mine also clearly marks ‘bot hits’. But it can all be confusing… like a blog thanking people for their blog hitting a number in a few months that a many blogs hit in a few weeks because the owners didn’t understand what the numbers meant.
This is a big reason I have always been against romance review sites and blogs charging for ads and spotlights. Most of the time the author doesn’t know what they are looking at, I have seen ‘review sites’ with open stats showing less than 60 visits in a day charging over $125 for a ‘spotlight’. And worst thing is authors were doing it.
It is hard enough to write a book, get someone to buy it, get it published and then worry about marketing it… now authors need to be able to speak computer. It makes me sad. And then you see people like Falk trying to beat up on ‘mean grrl’ bloggers who do nothing more than get books out there because they like them. Of course since it seems Falk is a touch woo woo, the fact she just fucked the shit out of her karma is prolly punishment enough for measuring her mouth with her foot.
Then again what do I know…
Well, we can’t keep people from being morons, Syb. All we can do is point and laugh when they do it.
Some people find a way to make money doing their hobby. More power to them, I think.
The reason I like your site, though, is because you’re not hawking something on it (not even lugies 🙂 ). It’s just an opinion site site for people of like mind about reading. And that’s perfect.
Heh. . .she fucked the shit out of her karma. How does one recover from that then? Are they a vibrator in the next life?
I think they come back as….
an Anal Intruder, Lawson.
Does anyone else remember Val Kilmer in Top Secret?
heee I liked Top Secret… which I am sure is shocking
Sybil –
Apparently I didn’t do a good enough job explaining myself. First of all, the copy and paste I did in my blog had to do with hits, which as you know, isn’t the best way to track traffic. We don’t even list hits on our home page…just page views and visitors.
When you set rates for advertising, you use page views. Luckily for me, the banner ad rotation program we use keeps track of the number of times each ad is shown, so I can and do compare those numbers against the page view numbers I have from AAR’s host…the hits number doesn’t even enter into it. When an advertiser signs up with AAR, they know that if they are advertising in the reviews section (which cannot include authors or titles), their ads will be viewed 50,000 times a month. If they are authors, their ads show up on non-review pages and are guaranteed to have 35,000 views in a month’s time. And the rates are set accordingly.
Yesterday I sent email to two authors whose ad campaigns had just ended; both had three-month campaigns. Their ads were guaranteed to have had 105,000 views during that three month period of time. Their actual views were closer to 110,000.
Regardless, if you use a variety of methods to track traffic, have studied statistics, and have a history to judge against, it is possible to make sense of all of it. AAR has been around long enough that I’ve got a decade’s worth of analyzed data, gathered through multiple types of capture and methodology. It doesn’t hurt that I’ve got a few semesters of undergraduate and graduate level statistical courses under my belt too.
This was really helpful before we switched hosts last year; I had to ask the old host to re-run stats every single month, and mostly because they results they provided were too high rather than too low. As someone conservative about juding the growth of my site, I’m far more likely to question high numbers than low numbers, although I accept neither until proven.
But again, the blog-city point had to do with hits and not page views. At AAR itself, while I keep up with hits on my spreadsheet, it’s really more as a check to make sure the other numbers I check are trending as I think they should.
So, because we don’t use hits to judge how we’re doing, the bots issue isn’t one that affects us. I hope that explains things for you.
LLB
ahhh well, no stat’s courses here so I am sure you are more up on it than I am…
Oddly enough AW stat’s also separates spiders and bots out of the page views, which of course are much lower than hits. And why in theory a website should have much more traffic than a blog as every page ‘hit’ by bot or by bod will be counted. I think that is what makes blogs like Dear Author so successful and important to authors as well as readers. You have one page, which in a review website would be four separate pages that averaged just last week 3400 sessions (each session being 1 IP visits) for a total of 117,921 page view and 269,704 hits – in one week.
I totally understand trying to make a coin off of what you love but the more and more I look into review sites, what they charge, what traffic they show and how easy it is to fudge numbers it makes me a touch ill. And sad for those authors who do get screwed.
Of course I am lazy and doubt I could analyze my data if I wanted too and leave 10 posts up a page, even my lil blog had over 76,500 page views and 340,000 hits for April (vs 35,000, damn, I should charge you guys!). So whats up with people charging over $100 for spotlights on sites no one sees?
Of course it comes down to the site owner and their honesty, you have some sites that have large amounts of spamish links from junk pages and porn sites that link to them which drives up their traffic numbers. And not every owner who is profiting off authors will be honest to break out the 1 second hits that are in and out as I am sure you are as well as most authors probably don’t know if the numbers being reported are ‘hits’, ‘page views’, or ‘page visitors’.
A good idea for authors would be to check out the blogs and review sites they are looking into, even newsletters although I can’t begin to understand how one would verify that… but with websites open stat’s like on Smart Bitches should be a great vote of confidence that the site has nothing to hide or fudge. Or they could check out alexa ratings, see the sites standings, who is linking into them and sending them hits and what search engines they are on. And a big thing I think is communications – everyone in their dog has a blog – tell what works and what doesn’t.
Of course that is easy for me to say, I have nothing to sell and I am not looking to make a dime off anyone. So there you go….
Sybil, I liked Top Secret too. That ballet scene makes me laugh every time.
Sybil –
The alexa ratings can’t tell the whole story. AAR is the perfect example. We moved our forums in March and now all of them are hosted outside of AAR proper, and none of the traffic the forums get is counted by Alexa toward likesbooks.com In April our forums alone had 300,000 page views, but none of those count in our Alexa ratings for likesbooks.com.
You seem very agitated about the idea that a website might make money from advertising. I’ve built AAR for over a decade, and for most of that time I’ve robbed Peter to pay Paul. I for one am glad that we’re making more money from advertising this year, given that the cost of maintaining the site has increased about 400% since we moved to our “new” host a year ago.
I have no idea what it costs to maintain a blog like yours, but it costs thousands of dollars a year to maintain – and improve – AAR. Just last week the design firm/database builder we use sent me a miscellaneous bill that I wasn’t expecting. Luckily enough I signed a new advertiser that week and was able to pay for it without dipping into my pocket.
I’m sure that there are unscrupulous sites out there, but that’s not something I know about, nor would I ever consider using sleezy methods to increase revenues.
LLB
I completely agree, forum’s or message boards would be one of the worst things to include for page views and to use those numbers to justify cost of ads would be dirty pool.
Board regulars generate a scary number of page views. One person visiting can generate 100s of views in one sitting and that same person could visit those boards repeatedly – all day. The hits would be out of the ballpark and that could be with little to no visitors. Add in the fact that people hate ads on forums, which is why so many web owners pay for bbs boards and the like so I can’t see why people would want to include those numbers other than to make it seem they are getting more ‘views’ than they are.
I am surprised how low the numbers are for the AAR boards though considering the move and the amount of time people will spend repeatedly trying to click on something when it won’t work correctly. And once it goes live again, the regs would go through each and every page and comment. I did notice though you have made it harder for the drive by visitor so that could account for the smaller numbers but will also protect you from crap like hacks. Then again message boards still give me nightmares and I am in awe of people to take them on to run them. The amount of panic people can feel when their ‘home’ goes down… even when there are 10 others just like it… I so do not miss that (lol sez she who is an admin on two BUT one of many).
And really agitated is a bad word but when you hear authors repeatedly talk about the small advance new authors get and trying to figure out how best to use their dollars in advertising it is sad to see so many book lovers looking to make money of their work. Of course really, I don’t care if they are making Nora Money, no one deserves to get fucked over.
Do I think it is wrong of you or anyone else, to make money off the site you create? No, not at all but I do think there needs to be more truth in advertising regarding what ‘net sites charge and the numbers they are reporting in order to justify the amount.
Then again that is easy for someone to say who doesn’t charge authors for the honor of liking their books, being spotlighted, getting a good review, expect them to publish my piece of shit novel explaining ‘The Secret’ to a best selling book because they are too stupid to understand the words themselves, hell I currently don’t even run google ad’s (Taramarie never did say if she was becoming a goddess millionaire of hers *g*).
It is just a different mindset I think. I am a fan. I like what I like and like to talk to others about it. I am not looking to create a career out of it or sell a book later. I am not calling myself a romance site and barely keeping up with the genre or expecting others to contact me and tell me what is going on so I can ‘report’ about it a week later as if it hasn’t already been covered.
It is surely a flaw in my character, one day I will learn.
I’ve read this discussion a couple of times and still am feeling very 20th century. :::sobbing:::
As a *reader* I like your site, Sybil–oh, and I like dearauthor, bam’s and some other independent readers. But I also trust AAR. Their reviewers aren’t influenced because the editorial and the advertising are kept thoroughly separate. Anyway, I figure if I like a site, other readers will, too. That’s why I advertise with AAR.
That’s probably the only I make my online advertising dollar decisions. (And by watching forums. If they don’t change often then I know no one’s visiting) The bot stuff . . . oh lord in heaven! I really don’t wanna have to take a course on this stuff.
Hey an author who has placed an ad! Did you feel it did any good? At the heart of it, if you would look at the ads and buy from them at x, y or z site – it makes sense that is where your $$s should go.
It isn’t really hard to understand the ‘idea’ a ‘bot is a server, spider, robot something of the kind that crawls your site looking for info. If you show up on google, you have been ‘crawled’. And they can do that many times in a day or not for days or weeks. Same with yahoo, answer.com, any search engine. Same thing for spambots. The hard thing is understanding how many each site is
As a reader I don’t like ad’s. And I don’t notice them unless they are god ugly, move, flash or take away from the site. I think that is a big reason I hate myspace with a blue passion. give me a trailer if you can make it worth watching but ALWAYS give me the option to watch it or not. Auto music, movement, sound or movies is the fastest way to get me off your site
Of course I don’t go to many review sites anymore and the more and more readers I meet off line – they don’t either. In the case o both Lawson and Gwen, they had never heard of AAR or The Romance Reader until I pointed them that way. As for an ebook author, I don’t know. AAR is prolly the most trafficed place you can buy to put your book but it isn’t really the audience who would buy it.
More and more studies are showing it is best to put your money into blogs. Conferences are suggesting it as the wisest way to use your money and more and more places like USA Today and Reuters are using them to showcase things from books to movies to music.
Of course that could change tomorrow… who knows
I have no idea if anything works. Nada, none. You’d think with almost everything online it would be easy to see, especially for my Summer Devon (mostly online) books. Mrs. Giggles has given me a good(ish) reviews and I think I sold more that month. I know Ann Wesley Hardin mentioned her sales spiked after Mrs G made one of her books a keeper.
The interesting thing is that my whole advertising plan has changed in the last couple of days because of one single email–and it wasn’t even to me. I’m talking about the one Carol Stacy wrote to Lauren B. I’ll join group ads in RT again eventually, I hope, once the nonsense is cleared up. (They give Summer meh stars but great quotes. And a great quote from RT is good to have plastered here and there. Plus Kate was a 2004 finalist and top pick so I have to love them, sort of)
I’m also running a Give Money (gift certificates) To People Who Pimp and Read Me thing at my blog.
Holy freaking hell. WHAT on EARTH is RT doing? For those of you who want to know, go here, read Lauren’s blog post, then about halfway down in the comments, you’ll see a comment from Carol Stacey that is a little mind-boggling.
http://sensualwriter.blogspot.com/2007/05/rthyatt-author-targeted.html
Now I’m kinda glad that I’ve never bought a copy of RT (nor have I read it).
I hadn’t read it gwen but I think there is more to the story on both sides than we are hearing.
And a whole lot of omg hyatt, omg texas being thrown around. Having worked in hospitality over seven years in three different chains (3 of those being with a Hyatt) I am pretty certain Hyatt doesn’t have issue with teh gays.
Could Lance whatever the manager? Sure, it is possible he fucked this up royally. Of course if promo alley was set up in a public venue that post shouldn’t have been up, neither should have more than half the stuff I see for aphro, heat and EC. That was a fuck up on the hotel’s part and RT.
I don’t know Lauren but it does sound at first read this was done for reaction. I HATE the fact that the general romance community is so right wing. And in fact it shocked the shit out of me the first few times I went to the MB on RT.
A large group of ‘general genre’ romance readers would never dirty their hands with erotica or erotic romance and the idea of it goes over their heads. So would the current base of readers want M/M romance reviewed? From the poll they did at the RT board I would have to say no.
So from the stance of business what do you do? The facts are M/M is largely written by straight women and by straight women. I don’t get it but hey I like novels with threesomes and many a person doesn’t get that. So whatever.
I am not sure what the answer is here. Someone cried freedom of speech and well as someone who has thrown people out of hotels for less (WHAT? you work spring break on south padre island) that idea doesn’t hold for me. No you can’t promote whatever in a hotel someone else owns. Private enterprise and all that… but again I say HYATT didn’t have anything to do here. Writing letters are fine and good as long as the whole story is told and they are truthful.
There seems to be a lot of emotional upset here and often truth gets lost in it. I think RT just doesn’t want to take the risk. That is their right as owners of the mag. Personally I think RT has all sorts of issues and they are missing a HUGE market.
A huge straight female one, and teddy pig. I don’t get why someone doesn’t take the time, money and energy they put into going to RT con (which hello, I wouldn’t go to for completely different reasons) and do what Falk did. Start a zine, show the market, own it yourselves.
RT doesn’t deserve the added numbers reviewing M/M romance would bring them. But to be fair I do think there is still more information here, on both sides, to be able to fairly weigh in with an opinion either way. Of course, everyone should know by now how I feel about unfairly labeling people in order to get them to do things.
But hey, if anyone figures out how to make a romance readers more liberal and open minded personally I am all for it.
It wasn’t the event itself that I objected to–I wasn’t there, so I didn’t see what happened. The tone and content of Carol Stacy’s note to Lauren B was what made me rethink my advertising plan. It was unpleasant. Objectionable and plain wrong.
Now dearauthors have another note about RT and CS, and perhaps CS was just having a bad day? I have to re-re-re-think. And, hey, maybe I should be thinking in terms of career instead of politics and emotion? Hmm. Nawwwwwwww.