The October Bump

If you look at the traffic graph on the lower right hand column of this blog, you'll see that the montly traffic to this blog peaked in October and has been in decline since.

I think I may turn the monthly decline around this month, but I doubt I'll reach the levels of traffic I got in October and November for another month or two.

Jackson talks about this in his recent blog post, called "where have all the comments gone".

I see this trend in the popular blogs as well.  I believe this is the monthly traffic graph for Jeff Jarvis' Buzzmachine.  At least I got it from his sitemeter tag on his page.

Before Jeff squawks too loudly, I should point out that if this is his traffic page, it doesn't count his largest form of traffic which is RSS and it is probably true that his overall traffic numbers have been rising, not falling.

But that also may be part of the answer to Ted's question.

I think the blogs got a huge boost from the political season and that brought a lot of people to the blog world that aren't bloggers themselves and aren't super technical.

Those readers may be gone, for now, and we may be back to the bloggers and geeks that have made up the blog world for the past five years.

If that's the case, then the percentage of overall traffic that comes from RSS will be higher now than it was in the fall.  The traffic declines represent the loss of one form of audience, but other forms may still be rising.  Commenting (which requires visiting the web page itself) may be in decline as well as a result.

Thoughts?

Comments

[Oliver]

i agree that the oct/political season really helped out blogging and that there was an inital fad associated with it since people had a reason to go search out new information. i would be curious to see how many half started blogs there are out there. as yahoo and google increase their rss offerings and it becomes more mainstream blogs will reappear but i think that this will be a gradual rise (eventually to a much much hgiher level than oct). people in equity markets havent realized that yhoo and goog gonig to have big upside for ad revs because of rss. yahoo branded advertising was massive numbver last qtr and i think a lot of it is due to increased inventory.

[Chris]

I think the rise in RSS readership is directly connected to the decline in comments. Very few RSS feeds include the comment link. I know that I comment less because I can't be bothered to click over to the full site. OTOH, when I do bother, it's because I think I have something to say, versus just throwing a snarky comment into the mix. So, it may be net positive in my case.

[Michael]

Maybe it depends on what you're wirting about (and whether you provide full posts in your RSS feeds). Obviously the folks who blog about politics would have seen drops after the election. The only dip in traffic I had was from August to September.

[hugh macleod]

Reading traffic is a bit like reading tea leaves. Too easy to see what you want to see, good or bad.

The thing is, the graphs don't measure the quality of the individual readers.

Your trafic may have dipped 20% or whatever. But maybe your trolls dipped 50% as well. So you may actually have come out ahead. Who knows.

Frankly, Fred, if you worry about the quality of the posts, then the audience (both size and quality) tends to take care of itself.

That's my two cents, anyway.

[directx]

directx - disegni - divx - dolci - download - downloads - edonkey - emoticons - emulatore - emulatori - emule - ferrari

[directx]

directx - disegni - divx - dolci - download - downloads - edonkey - emoticons - emulatore - emulatori - emule - ferrari

[astuce]

blagueaudiblague drolecd musiquechanson a telechargercarte postale ancienneblague humourcarte postale virtuelleautoradio mp3blague blondebonne blagueavastbaladeur lecteur mp3avgbitdefenderchanson a telecharger gratuitementcarte postalebmwcodec divxcomment telechargerdivx a telechargerconvertir mp3divxclip video a telechargerdivx playercodec telechargerdivx codecdivx gratuitconvertir wma en mp3convertisseur mp3chevroletdivx codecchrysler financialdivx dvdcitroenclone cdjeu gratiut a telechargerjeu pc a telecharger gratuitjeu pc a telecharger gratuitementjeu pc gratuit a telechargerjeu d echec a telechargerjeu flash a telechargerjeu pokemon a telechargerjeu de voiturejeux a telechargerjeu gratuis a telechargerjeu pc telecharger gratuitementjeu pour enfant a telechargerjeu de tarotjeu video a telechargerjeu video gratuit a telechargerjeu video a telecharger gratuitementjeu pc a telechargerjeu gratuit a telechargerjeux gratuit a telechargerjeux de carte a telechargerjeux d avion a telechargerjeux gratiut a telechargerjeux pc telecharger gratuitementjeux pc a telecharger gratuitementjeux a telecharger gratuitementjeux d echec a telechargerjeux flash a telechargerjeux a telecharger sur pcjeux gratuis a telechargerjeux pc a telecharger gratuitjeux pc gratuit a telechargerjeux de voiturejeux pc a telechargerjeux de tarotjeux de billard a telechargerjeux a telecharger gratuitastuceacuraaston martinad awareantivirusantivirus en lignealbumsastrologieantivirus gratuitadobe acrobatastuce jeu videoalbumassurance autoacrobatastrologie gratuiteantivirus a telechargerantivirus gratuit a telechargeralfa romeo brera