Sunday, April 28, 2013

Top 10 Game blogs: Q113

While the metric utilized by Alexa is without question flawed, it does provide the rough ability to compare readerships across blogs in the absence of openly posted traffic stats.  As you can see on the left sidebar, I make both my Google Analytics and Sitemeter numbers accessible to everyone, unfortunately, the vast majority of bloggers prefer to avoid letting people know exactly how many people are reading their blogs.

But there is interesting and important information to be gleaned from open statistics, and for the Game world, a healthy reminder that despite the growth of the androsphere and the general awareness of Game, it is not even close to breaking through to the mainstream as yet.  We still have a long, long way to go. Consider the Alexa traffic rankings of those blogs more or less accounted the biggest dogs of the Game world:

Blog, est. monthly Google pageviews, (Alexa rank, US Alexa rank). Bold text indicates actual numbers.
  1. Return of Kings: 2,250,000, (47,638, 16,112) 
  2. Roissy: 2,150,000, (55,261, 17,302)
  3. Roosh: 1,800,000, (54,556, 21,906)
  4. HUS: 575,000, (119,608, 46,210)
  5. AG: 303,245, (227,202, 44,033)
  6. MMSL: 240,480, (230,463, 73,532) (1)
  7. Dalrock: 237,295, (184,203, 74,477) 
  8. Keoni: 72,283, (759,632, 181,127)
  9. Rollo: 75,000, (1,577,448, 278,497)
  10. Badger: 23,000, (1,161,139, 409,010)
With the exception of Alpha Game and MMSL*, these numbers are mere estimates.  However, due to the fact that I have two points of comparison with VP and AG, the estimates are at least somewhat based on realistic conversion rates. I suspect Rollo, in particular, is being shortchanged by Alexa Toolbar readers, because Alexa only shows one link to Rational Male while I know for a fact that there is more than one link to that blog from Alpha Game alone.

I also don't know if Alexa traffic or Alexa US traffic is more determinative of actual pageviews. I'm assuming the former, because I believe both HUS and Dalrock have more traffic than AG. I found it particularly surprising, (and, considering that I live in Europe, more than a little ironic), that according to Alexa, both Susan and Dalrock are more popular than Alpha Game outside the USA.  The similar, but much smaller inversion between Roosh and Roissy makes a little more sense to me, given Roosh's focus on international relations. The list also shows why Game is still so often confused with its pick-up aspect, because the PUA-focused sites remain the most popular by a considerable margin.

Anyhow, I would welcome actual numbers from any of the blogs mentioned above, be they Wordpress pageviews, Google pageviews, or Sitemeter visitors, as even one or two more datapoints would allow me to make more accurate estimates.  But I digress, as this is the sobering point that I wished to remind everyone.

Jezebel 46,681,852, (2,168,583)

This is why there is no need for internecine competition amongst Game bloggers. The truth of Game will win out in the end, because reality always eventually exposes even the prettiest, most passionate lies. But collectively speaking, we have a long, long way to go.

UPDATE: Apparently my estimates haven't been too far off.  Susan reports that HUS is running at 575k/month, as opposed to the 600k/month I estimated, in addition to Athol's 240k/month versus the estimated 175k/month.  This also settles the question about Alexa, as the global rank is clearly the one that matters, not the US one.  In the next quarterly update, I will drop the US rank.

UPDATE 2: Badger's peak was 47k/month in November, not far off from my estimate of 50k, but since he slacked off, he's been running at 23k.


(1) The MMSL Forum has 1.2 million monthly pageviews.  Since forums are not blogs, and have a very different readership patterns, I don't think it's correct to put it on the blog list as such.  But it certainly merits mention.

50 comments:

Athol Kay said...

MMSL was 240,480 page views last 30 days.
The forum is about 1.2 million.

A fair amount of the commenting went from the blog to the forum so page view slopped that way I think.

The biggest concern is that we're all essentially sharing the same 30-40k readers.

VD said...

Thanks, Athol. Very useful information. 240/175 wasn't too bad an estimate, then. Rather pleased about that. Wordpress or Google pageviews, by the way?

I didn't think to check the forum site on Alexa; I will do that, although I think it will go in the "honorable mention" category, since comparing forums to blogs isn't quite apples to apples.

You're right, of course, there is a considerable amount of overlap between our various blogs. That's why we should all be interested in helping the overall readership to grow.

Jack (VivaLaManosphere) said...

"...That's why we should all be interested in helping the overall readership to grow."

I've been linking to you guys daily to help - some of the guys have noticed respectable increases in traffic.

VD said...

Yeah, that sort of aggregation service you're providing is important. That's exactly what makes Instapundit so important to the right side of the blogosphere.

Made Men said...

Thanks for this. Good to know who we're joining in the genre.

Anonymous said...

if i may throw my 2 cents in. how about you only list the blogs that have a single writer.

roissy, ROK, both have more than one writer.

and Badger went off the grid for a minute. still love 'im though. if he's pulling decent numbers that's all that matters. and i'm just glad he's back to posting.

VD said...

if i may throw my 2 cents in. how about you only list the blogs that have a single writer.

Because the list refers to "blogs" and not "writers". It isn't a competition. Rollo and Deti have been explaining how far we have collectively come, I am merely pointing out how far we have to go.

Ideally, there will be new names joining this list in future quarters and the numbers will continue to increase.

Badger said...

I have to say I am (happily) floored by my blog's #10 position. It's curious to think how thin the crop of dedicated game bloggers has become, and it says a lot (all positive) about the challenge of longevity for those on this list. I felt like a young sapling when I started in a forest of mature oaks, and so many of those oaks have felled.

I have to run, but I'll post some numbers later today when I have a chance to aggregate them.

Stingray said...

Is there any way to compare this to numbers 1-5 years ago? Even 10 years ago so as to compare the level of growth?

Anonymous said...

since when does CH have more than one writer?

Susan Walsh said...

Very interesting, Vox. I'm floored by the Jezebel numbers, but remember, that's a lot of celebrity gossip, viral YouTube videos, cute cat pics, etc. In fact, I used to subscribe for the feminism, but have found it much less substantial than HuffPo Women and Slate XX.

Any ideas how one of us might gets scooped up by Gawker Media? :)

Old Harry said...

I'm curious if there is any information on McRapey's numbers? It would be nice if there was enough granularity in the data that we could see if his numbers jump when he gets mentioned in the manosphere.

Badger said...

Badger Hut's average monthly viewers since Jan 1 2013 (not counting the last four days of April which have yet to happen) are a bit over 23,000 per month.

Peak monthly views were last November, when the Hut got just under 47,000. (In a major irony, I haven't had time to write up a post on why I'm posting less than I used to.)

These are stats taken from my Wordpress admin dashboard.

I have to say Vox, since I switched from beer to wine my views have been going down.

VD said...

Peak monthly views were last November, when the Hut got just under 47,000. (In a major irony, I haven't had time to write up a post on why I'm posting less than I used to.)

Well, you have to admit that my 50k estimate wasn't too bad there....

VD said...

Here is traffic information for VP and Whatever dating back to 2009.

VD said...

Any ideas how one of us might gets scooped up by Gawker Media? :)

I tend to imagine it is much more likely to be you than me or Roosh....

Keoni Galt said...

Hawaiian libertarian had 72,283 in the last 30 days. It's averaged between 2,000 - 3,000 views a day for the past several years.

I recently confirmed a suspicion I had about my page views, as for the first time since I started my blog in 2007, I took a 3 and 1/2 week hiatus from posting anything new, and my average daily page views during that time barely dropped.

This confirmed my hunch that my regular page views are primarily driven by folks who use my blogroll as a gateway to these fringes of teh interwebz.

I would venture to guess that a lot of folks visit all the other sites on this list for the frequent, almost daily posting of new material, whereas folks use my site more like an aggregator. When I do post new material, I get a slight increase in page views, but I really only notice a difference if someone else in the MAndrosphere links to it.

Another thing I find interesting is that I basically have two posts that went viral, and to this day still get hundreds of views a day, and they're constantly getting linked to.

"Game is the Red Pill" is my top post of all time, with 58,612 total views. I'm amazed by how many views it still gets to this day, nearly 4 years after having posted it. I have no other posts that even come close to that. Most of my posts in the past several years get around 4,000 to 6,000 all time views.

In terms of bringing in new readers to these parts, my 2nd most viewed post all time was about raising my kid on the Paleo diet ("Paleo Baby" 32,624 all time views.) It went viral in the Paleo/Primal blogosphere, and I still get a lot of traffic from those places.

I frequently get comments from folks who find a link to my "Paleo Baby" post, who then go on to read through my archives. Some get offended by the game/anti-feminist posts and leave, while others start checking out the sites on my blogroll and they go on to become manosphere regulars themselves.

I'm curious VD...do you have any such posts like that (both here and at VP), in which they have 10 times the page views of any other posts, and still brings in new readers, years after having been posted?

VD said...

I'm curious VD...do you have any such posts like that (both here and at VP), in which they have 10 times the page views of any other posts, and still brings in new readers, years after having been posted?

Yep, the Top Posts in the left sidebar and apparently the one about women not cutting their hair. Surprised that one hasn't cracked the top five yet.

When you refer to pageviews, is that Google or Wordpress?

Keoni Galt said...

Oh, and my blog's all time peak was in January of this year, at 81,371. I've never cracked 100k per your estimate.

Keoni Galt said...

Google.

Anonymous said...

oh, i KNOW we'll see new voices popping up. the community is growing.i'm just proud to be a part of it. i'm taking it on myself to promote the newer, less known sites.

a lot of them have great ideas/voices. the bigger site's need to promote them as well. as far as i'm concerned, it should be part of their responsibility. i LOVE Susan, she's always been good to me, but i'd rather try and help out the guy that's getting 200 views a day rather than the guy getting 2000.

stay up Vox.

Ras Al Ghul said...

While there is a long way to go, it doesn't take much to have the "common knowledge" shift dramatically and as you have noted, there is a shift in the wind.

There have been studies about how opinions change based on the probability on meeting someone with an opinion that is contra the prevailing one.

It isn't meeting the first red pill individual that causes people to start re-evaluating their world view. It's running into the second person. And it takes only about 10% of the population holding a red pill view for it to become a tipping point that can cause a major paradigm shift in society as a whole and the shift can be sudden.

So it may seem far away, but it is quite a bit closer than one would think.

The real question is what all these young first generation (I wouldn't say first wave)red-pill aware men (as Rollo describes them) will do.

Will it save western civilization, keep a spark of it alive for its return, or hasten the collapse into a dark age.

It seems more likely that it will probably do the last two.

(And yes Dave, although I read your blog I use it as the gate to the Shadows found here.)

VD said...

a lot of them have great ideas/voices. the bigger site's need to promote them as well. as far as i'm concerned, it should be part of their responsibility. i LOVE Susan, she's always been good to me, but i'd rather try and help out the guy that's getting 200 views a day rather than the guy getting 2000.

I don't disagree. I will likely expand this well beyond the top 10 if the various other bloggers are interested in my putting together a top 50 list or even a top 100 if there enough to justify it.

SarahsDaughter said...

I'm a bit confused how the alexa rating works. My page views last month according to blogger dashboard were 23,486 yet my alexa ranking is 554,892 Global and 187,310 US.

Also the stat counter I put in varies greatly from blogger dashboard. Stat counter says there were 312 page loads today, dashboard says 890.

On the subject of blogs, Vox, could you tell me how you were able to get rid of the "reply" feature on each comment. I like the way AG's comments are streamlined. Thanks!

jlw said...

How about PUAHate and OmegaVirginRevolt? What's the rankings of the tinfoil hat crowd?

Anonymous said...

The Spearhead definitely belongs on this list.

Johnny Caustic said...

since when does CH have more than one writer?

He's said so in the comments multiple times, though never providing details.

I think there was a clear transition around 2010; around that year there was period when the blog seemed to have two different regular authors, and there was a specific time when a bunch of the most controversial old posts got deleted. It's never been clear whether the original author is still contributing or whether there are still multiple authors, and I'm making presumptions purely based on my perception of the writing style of the posts, but I think of the pre-2010 posts as "Roissy" and the post-2010 posts as "Heartiste", with a middle period when both were posting. Both authors have similar tones and they're hard to tell apart. But I think the old Roissy posts had a touch of genius about them, whereas the new Heartiste posts are a sort of very intelligent imitation but not quite the great man.

Thidwick said...

I do think that the Manosphere will only continue to grow. Some guys come across game blogs and take to it immediately (I think this is especially true of older men who have been through a divorce or two and have seen the female sex for what it is), but others take longer to unplug from the Matrix. I ran into the Game community multiple times over a span of four years before I finally swallowed the Red Pill. My first exposure came from videos on Youtube of Mystery bootcamps. I thought the guy was fuckin' nuts.

I ran into PUA sites a few more times the next couple of years, and it wasn't until last year that I finally saw the Matrix for what it was, realized my own feminized behavior, and began unplugging. Thanks to Captain Capitalism, I was exposed to Roosh and Roissy and then eventually the whole Manosphere.

The thing about the Red Pill is that you can't ignore it. Expose an AFC to the Red Pill enough times, and he will swallow it.

Anonymous said...

What does HUS stand for?

Anonymous said...

Anon 3:06 am:

HUS= Hooking Up Smart. Susan Walsh's blog.

deti

Amir Larijani said...

I realize this is a stupid question, but who is Jezebel?

JohnR said...

A nasty bitch from the Bible who was the wife of Ahab. She had Naboth killed so Ahab could have have his land.

Thrown from a window and eaten by dogs.

Oh, it's a feminist blog too.

Anonymous said...

Interesting. It looks like Alexa is overestimating my traffic. Here is what wordpress says my hit traffic was for the last four months:

Jan: 267,826
Feb: 205,749
March: 262,784
April (not quite finished yet): 245,490

Amir Larijani said...

JohnR: LOL! I knew about the bitch from the Bible; her getting tossed out of the window--and eaten by canines--is one of the brighter moments in the OT!

If that beta pussy Ahab had been smarter, he would have done that to Jezebel when she plotted against Naboth. It would have done wonders to his physical health and legacy.

Anonymous said...

I see that Wordpress has a more detailed stats page available now, and this shows the number of visitors in addition to hits. The number of monthly visitors is averaging around 60k.

They also have a breakdown of views by country. Here are the top 25 country stats for the last 30 days:

United States 175,509
Canada 17,565
United Kingdom 12,546
Australia 9,072
Germany 3,032
South Africa 2,176
Finland 2,096
Sweden 1,480
New Zealand 1,346
India 1,153
Ireland 996
Brazil 964
Romania 903
Norway 877
Netherlands 811
Mexico 796
Croatia 773
France 754
Spain 736
Hungary 724
Poland 697
Singapore 696
Japan 641
Czech Republic 569
Italy 516

VD said...

It looks like Alexa is overestimating my traffic.

Alexa loves you and hates Rollo, apparently. The reason for the 237k vs the 245k four-month average is the correction for the Wordpress/Google ratio.

Anonymous said...

Curious,I wonder if there would be any way to tell how many of the new Red Pill converts are women?

Phero said...

Time to start a blog!

Leap of a Beta said...

"I will likely expand this well beyond the top 10 if the various other bloggers are interested in my putting together a top 50 list or even a top 100 if there enough to justify it."

I know I'd be curious to see how traffic fairs. As someone blogging for about a year I average about 3-4k views a month, with larger outbreaks every now and then - highest I've gotten is 7550. Keoni just picked me up on his blogroll, which drove my views up significantly last month, almost hitting 7k. I'm interested to see if it stays there or grows.

Looking at the hits that the big names bring in, it seems as if min are likely pretty average numbers for a manosphere blog.

As said above, we have to worry about sharing the same readers, especially as it seems those of us most vocal and involved come from INTJ mindsets. I don't worry about becoming an echo chamber too much as long as we're aware of it.

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Anonymous said...

HUS is not a red pill blog, we all know this, let's not have to debate it again.

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Socialkenny PUA said...

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