OL Rankings

[william.scherk]

Fun global rankings of a selected set of Objectivish websites. Although the Compete.com rankings do not quite compare, they show that of the Three Sisters**, only OL has increased its readership in the past year; RoR has lost 34.84%, SOLO has lost 41.86%. OL has gained 56.83%.

Well done, Michael & Kat!

Aynrand.org's three-month global Alexa traffic rank is 179,717.

Traffic Rank in US: 70,088

**Objectivistliving.com's three-month global Alexa traffic rank is 183,811.

Traffic Rank in US: 43,963

**Solopassion.com's three-month global Alexa traffic rank is 223,588.

Traffic Rank in US: 148,084

Objectivismonline.net is ranked #338,006 in the world according to the three-month Alexa traffic rankings.

Traffic Rank in US: 88,061

There are 409,833 sites with a better three-month global Alexa traffic rank than Dianahsieh.com, and the site has been online for at least nine years.

Traffic Rank in US: 142,026

**Rebirthofreason.com's three-month global Alexa traffic rank is 593,333.

Traffic Rank in US: 197,251

Theobjectivestandard.com's three-month global Alexa traffic rank is 1,003,942

Traffic Rank in US: 308,243

4aynrandfans.com's three-month global Alexa traffic rank is 1,011,964.

No regional data.

Intellectualactivist.com has a three-month global Alexa traffic rank of 3,883,120, and it has been online for more than thirteen years.

No regional data.

Edited February 5, 2011 by william.scherk

[Jerry Biggers]

Fun global rankings of a selected set of Objectivish websites. Although the Compete.com rankings do not quite compare, they show that of the Three Sisters**, only OL has increased its readership in the past year; RoR has lost 34.84%, SOLO has lost 41.86%. OL has gained 56.83%.

Well done, Michael & Kat!

Aynrand.org's three-month global Alexa traffic rank is 179,717.

Traffic Rank in US: 70,088

**Objectivistliving.com's three-month global Alexa traffic rank is 183,811.

Traffic Rank in US: 43,963

**Solopassion.com's three-month global Alexa traffic rank is 223,588.

Traffic Rank in US: 148,084

Objectivismonline.net is ranked #338,006 in the world according to the three-month Alexa traffic rankings.

Traffic Rank in US: 88,061

There are 409,833 sites with a better three-month global Alexa traffic rank than Dianahsieh.com, and the site has been online for at least nine years.

Traffic Rank in US: 142,026

**Rebirthofreason.com's three-month global Alexa traffic rank is 593,333.

Traffic Rank in US: 197,251

Theobjectivestandard.com's three-month global Alexa traffic rank is 1,003,942

Traffic Rank in US: 308,243

4aynrandfans.com's three-month global Alexa traffic rank is 1,011,964.

No regional data.

Intellectualactivist.com has a three-month global Alexa traffic rank of 3,883,120, and it has been online for more than thirteen years.

No regional data.

Wow! I am pleasantly surprised at the ranking results reported here. I have long held that there are a variety of reasons that people are attracted to Rand's philosophical views and that it is a mistake to think that just because some persons, or group of persons, claim to be "Objectivists," that that means they must be "just like us." These results appear to indicate that a considerable number of those looking for online discussions of Objectivism are noticing the differences displayed on these sites.

In particular, the postings that I have seen on Hsieh's, and some of the other pro-ARIan sites, often display intolerance toward any deviation from the almost "party line" stance and their moderators often expel and ban any poster that questions any portion of the Peikovian creed. This has done considerable damage to Rand's reputation and has impaired the spread of Objectivism, particularly in academia. Leftist journalists and academics delight in highlighting this anti-individualist behavior as good reasons for those curious about Rand to dismiss her philosophy without actually examining its views.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Wow.

If this isn't proof that content is king, I don't know what is.

I have said several times, and I will repeat it here, that I do not promote this site.

I have some heavy-duty traffic tricks up my sleeve (as anyone who has followed some of my Internet marketing posts can glimpse), but I do not use them for OL.

The reason is economic. More people coming aboard means less time for me to make money. Also, a forum is hands down the worst online way to make money. I wish I had known that when I started.

The only person I know of who does it well is Allen Says with The Warrior Forum for Internet marketing. (I am sure there are others. This is the only one I personally know of.)

This forum is creating a good community base, though, for some future ideas--money-wise and otherwise. (I secretly dream of getting people here on OL--who want to--to make lots of money, but I'm still working on that one.)

Michael

[PDS]

Wow.

If this isn't proof that content is king, I don't know what is.

I have said several times, and I will repeat it here, that I do not promote this site.

I have some heavy-duty traffic tricks up my sleeve (as anyone who has followed some of my Internet marketing posts can glimpse), but I do not use them for OL.

The reason is economic. More people coming aboard means less time for me to make money. Also, a forum is hands down the worst online way to make money. I wish I had known that when I started.

The only person I know of who does it well is Allen Says with The Warrior Forum for Internet marketing. (I am sure there are others. This is the only one I personally know of.)

This forum is creating a good community base, though, for some future ideas--money-wise and otherwise. (I secretly dream of getting people here on OL--who want to--to make lots of money, but I'm still working on that one.)

Michael

MSK: I am sure I speak for many on this forum in thanking you for being such a gracious host. It is not a surprise, to me at least, that your site is showing this level of success.

[Philip Coates]

Isn't 'traffic' a measure of how many people reach a site because, say, they googled the word Objectivism ... not a measure of whether they liked a site enough to ever return?

That's the real measure of success - return visits, but I don't know how you measure it.

[william.scherk]

Isn't 'traffic' a measure of how many people reach a site because, say, they googled the word Objectivism ... not a measure of whether they liked a site enough to ever return?

No.

That's the real measure of success - return visits, but I don't know how you measure it.

Exactly.

I geeve you big heent, Pheeel. I geeeve you leeeenk. Check out Alexa.com, and you can teeeech yourself.

[caroljane]

Isn't 'traffic' a measure of how many people reach a site because, say, they googled the word Objectivism ... not a measure of whether they liked a site enough to ever return?

No.

That's the real measure of success - return visits, but I don't know how you measure it.

Exactly.

I geeve you big heent, Pheeel. I geeeve you leeeenk. Check out Alexa.com, and you can teeeech yourself.

Hey, if OL does this well in 2011, I plan to claim share secretly apportion all the credit.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I was going to make a quip about when Phil was going to show up.

I wanted to let a few posts gather first, though.

Now he beat me to the punch.

Oh well...

Anyway, I checked Google Analytics just now. For those who don't know, Google Analytics is a program you can authorize Google to use to measure your site's traffic, visit habits (like time on site), etc. You have to put a piece of code on your site that feeds the data to Google's computers.

Of the slightly over 8,500 people (unique visitors) who came to OL from the Jan 5 to Feb 4, 2011 period, 37.80% were new visits. All the others were people who had already visited the site. We had well over 21,000 visits, so that means a lot of those 8,500 people returned several times during the month.

Traffic coming from search engines was 60%. (In light of the 37.80% new visits, this means many returning visitors to OL did a Google search for whatever reason, saw us listed and clicked.) The average time spent on the site was slightly under 11 minutes per visit.

(Added later: Here are a couple of other figures I did not include before. We also had 144,435 page views, and when visitors came, they visited slightly under 7 pages per visit. This means they usually read several topics each visit.)

I feel for Phil, though. It's a real bitch when reality does not conform to a prejudice. The worst words in the world for a person like that are: "You are wrong, The facts back it up, too. Here they are."

I wonder what the Objectivist literature says you should do when that happens, hmmmmm? I used to think Objectivists would do--or try to do--what Objectivism says you should do in identifying reality, but I have learned over time that that's often a mistake.

Michael

[sjw]

Congrats Michael & Kat. I'm sure the anti-authoritarian atmosphere is a big part of the reason.

Is it somewhat embarrassing to ARI that what is really just a hobby for Michael ends up beating them at generating interest on the Internet?

From another perspective, this conveys just how tiny the interest in Objectivism is. LewRockwell.com's stats for example:

- 6,637 traffic rank

- 1,769 US traffic rank

Mises.org is about half as popular, but that still puts it far more popular than Objectivist sites. Also, the intellectual energy going into these sites is far higher than that going into Objectivism's, as can be seen by the frequent articles published there alone, and that's not mentioning the other things they do. So it would seem that even anarchists are far better at organizing than Objectivists are. But we all know the back story for why someone with a hobby would beat out the extreme authoritarianism of ARI.

Shayne

[9thdoctor]

It wasn't long ago that someone else studied this and claimed that OL was at the bottom of the barrel:

http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9382&view=findpost&p=111276

I suppose these things wax and wane. OL probably has the highest posting volume, and the most unique posters. OO is about equal though, I suspect.

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Congrats Michael & Kat. I'm sure the anti-authoritarian atmosphere is a big part of the reason.

Is it somewhat embarrassing to ARI that what is really just a hobby for Michael ends up beating them at generating interest on the Internet?

From another perspective, this conveys just how tiny the interest in Objectivism is. LewRockwell.com's stats for example:

- 6,637 traffic rank

- 1,769 US traffic rank

Mises.org is about half as popular, but that still puts it far more popular than Objectivist sites. Also, the intellectual energy going into these sites is far higher than that going into Objectivism's, as can be seen by the frequent articles published there alone, and that's not mentioning the other things they do. So it would seem that even anarchists are far better at organizing than Objectivists are. But we all know the back story for why someone with a hobby would beat out the extreme authoritarianism of ARI.

Shayne

The main lines of Objectivist inquiry are mostly played out. The 2005, 2006 TAS Seminars gave a good indication of where progress could go intellectually. The problem is that there isn't a critical mass of people who know the philosophy, but who also have the requisite background in biology, behavioral economics, neuroscience, game theory and complex systems to expand the system from being abstract philosophy to be a flexible, reality-oriented decision science.

Jim

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

There is probably a good explanation for the growth of OL's traffic: target audience.

A few years ago, I wrote an article called The Ayn Rand Love/Hate Myth, (with a series that followed).

I gave the following audience breakdown (being super generous to the extreme Rand lovers and haters):

2% - Rand lovers out to save the world in the name of Objectivism.

96% - People who like Rand, but who live their own values as a fundamental, taking the parts of Rand they find valuable and leaving the rest behind.

2% - Rand haters out to discredit Rand and destroy her influence wherever possible.

I think it is more like < 1% | > 98% | < 1%, though.

Anyway, my target audience is the 96-98%.

My approach has something to do with it, too. I want folks to learn more about Rand's ideas--if they want to--and to continue thinking for themselves and get better at it when relevant. I don't really care about the extreme Rand lovers and haters. They are more interesting to me as topics for discussion than actual participants. I believe this is true for my target audience, too.

The target audience of the extreme Rand lovers and haters is merely the < 1-2% margins. (Notice the ban-hammers of forums enforcing this.) When they make excursions out to attract the 96-98%, they do it from the approach of telling the folks in the audience to stop being the way they are and start becoming a fanatic. (The term "fresh meat" comes to mind. )

These will be natural limiting and growth factors for traffic over time without any need for promotion.

Michael

[AnnaLisa]

Congratulations Michael ...

Pleased to see your site continues to grow. I am a frequent visitor, have enjoyed the variety of posts and contributions.

AnnaLisa

[James Heaps-Nelson]

There is probably a good explanation for the growth of OL's traffic: target audience.

A few years ago, I wrote an article called The Ayn Rand Love/Hate Myth, (with a series that followed).

I gave the following audience breakdown (being super generous to the extreme Rand lovers and haters):

2% - Rand lovers out to save the world in the name of Objectivism.

96% - People who like Rand, but who live their own values as a fundamental, taking the parts of Rand they find valuable and leaving the rest behind.

2% - Rand haters out to discredit Rand and destroy her influence wherever possible.

I think it is more like < 1% | > 98% | < 1%, though.

Anyway, my target audience is the 96-98%.

My approach has something to do with it, too. I want folks to learn more about Rand's ideas--if they want to--and to continue thinking for themselves and get better at it when relevant. I don't really care about the extreme Rand lovers and haters. They are more interesting to me as topics for discussion than actual participants. I believe this is true for my target audience, too.

The target audience of the extreme Rand lovers and haters is merely the < 1-2% margins. (Notice the ban-hammers of forums enforcing this.) When they make excursions out to attract the 96-98%, they do it from the approach of telling the folks in the audience to stop being the way they are and start becoming a fanatic. (The term "fresh meat" comes to mind. )

These will be natural limiting and growth factors for traffic over time without any need for promotion.

Michael

I think content, usability and reasonably light touch management are why the traffic here is high. I think any number of approaches to Rand could generate high traffic. As much as I have tended to dislike Reason magazine, I think that the Reason Foundation tends to target the right audience: technology first adopters. There are a couple reasons for this: 1. impact, these people are statistically likely to do important things. 2. These people are likely to need Rand's message.

I agree with you, Michael, that the habit of giving unsolicited advice or trying to tell other people what they should do is a fool's errand.

Jim

Edited February 6, 2011 by James Heaps-Nelson