Guest post by WUWT moderator Mike Lorrey
One of the nice tools that alexa.com has is that it lets you compare multiple sites against each other. For those with competition of either economic or political nature, this is of high importance to gauge how well one is doing achieving one’s marketshare or mindshare goals, and how badly one’s competition is stumbling in delivering its message or attracting customers.
Today I did a four-way comparison between WUWT, Climate Progress and Real Climate, as well as Climateaudit.org, run by our good friend Steve McIntyre, going back through the entire traffic record that alexa has for these sites.
As you can see, there is a rather dramatic evolution over time.
Prior to the 2008 US Presidential election of Barack Obama, three of the four blogs were pretty well competitive (realclimate.org was always the least popular, indicating the general public got that this was an astroturfing site by climate alarmists who tolerated no dissent). Even though Steve McIntyre tended to be the most technical, he still attracted a competitive following. His television appearances and congressional testimony really helped his exposure even if the layman had difficulty avoiding the glaze-over on some of his blog content. After the election, when it became clear that climate change legislation was a top priority for this president, people clearly started educating themselves about it. Our Surfacestations.org project and the resulting report brought us additional attention in the major media. WUWT started clearly distinguishing itself as providing content that was understandable to the layman, did not talk down to the average bloke (like was typical at CP and RC) and did not regularly attack people based on their political leanings. Commentary from all directions was encouraged, with postings by non-skeptic scientists to provide a balanced view, and which only limited commentary when it came to personal attacks and off-topic thread hijacking (again, unlike CP and RC).
This resulted in our weblog award for 2008 as the number one science blog, beating out alarmist blogs, leading to much tooth gnashing by the warmist press.
Our popularity grew as we reported on the growing controversies over FOIA compliance, IPCC dissenting opinions, the dendro-wars, and the continuing spotlessness of the sun while arctic ice coverage recovered from its 2007 low, meeting our predictions and smashing the hopes of the AGW alarmists.
Then Climategate and the CRUtape Letters hit the blogosphere. The alexa stats clearly demonstrate who won the narrative with the public with a dramatic step change in the popularity of WUWT along with a crash of CP and RC after brief spurts. Similarly, climateaudit.org reached its highest ever rankings since the FOIA requests of Steve and friends were so central to the scandal. WUWT peaked several times into the top 10,000 websites globally.
As of this writing, WUWT is ranked #6 by Alexa in the world for Environmental websites, not just climate blog sites. We are higher ranked than the Environmental Working Group, WWF, National Wildlife Federation, Mother Earth News, The Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy and The Environmental Defense Fund. We rank just behind The Oil Drum, the primary Peak Oil website.
While things have settled down a bit since climategate broke, we are seeing a recent spurt of activity due in part to Anthony’s speaking tour, where he has spoken to packed and enthusiastic crowds. As we add more reference pages on different topics, we expect to see more traffic grow as these references become additional traffic generators in their own right.
We should reach our 50 millionth website hit some time this coming week, a major milestone in the development of this site. Stay tuned for the announcement.
“TJA says: July 27, 2010 at 5:34 am”
“There’s a “Peak Oil” website? Whodathunkit? Oh yeah, people who think that the ‘law’ of supply and demand is a primitive superstition.”
theoildrum.com is an excellent website with loads of contributions from top people all throughout the industry. I think they generally believe that the ‘supply’ is a fixed amount – As we appear to be on the oil ‘peak’ they must have something going for them. Of course there is a large amount of survivalist stuff thrown in there too.
As regards Real Climate I’d be all up for a debate if they would even vaguely have one. It really does portray itself as a group of adolescent bullying school boys. Do they not ever think about what they look like to ‘normal’ people. I think RC is up there with WUWT in people deciding whether they believe in AGW.
Outstanding and very well done on very well deserved webstats. I visit several times everyday. This site combines the winning blog formula of just the right amount of appropriate moderation, freedom of views, freedom of respectable dissent and, most importantly, fantastic, relevant regularly updated content. (the latter being the hardest to source). The content brings me here, and the comments keep me here.
As I launch another blog in a few weeks, (on a different topic completely unrelated to climate change and I am not trying to spam or plug it here.), I would consider myself very fortunate and very successful indeed if I can boast one percent of the scale of your web-traffic within a couple of years, as it is peripheral advertising I hope to capitalise on, through affiliate programs. I am not setting out to make millions, but a bit of extra pocket money every month would come in handy. You have a winning formula and I can only hope to emulate it in my own sphere.
Congratulations Anthony and the team, you fully deserve all the success this blog can bring you.
You provide a wonderful oasis of reason and sense in an increasingly nonsense world. Thank you so much for that.
When you have an excellent website, the traffic will come. Focus on excellence and truth.
Congratulations Anthony.
Would that be educated in the old Soviet sense of the word? Because I cannot find anything on their website which is truly educational.
There is lots of iconography and praise of false gods (computer models), but there is very little REAL science that conforms fully to the scientific method. It resembles a religious site dressed up as a scientific one.
Enonym says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:14 am
You’re right, laughter is an important element here, in addition to actual science. The idiocy of the Alarmists can be extraordinarily amusing. Thinking you will “get educated” at RC is a good example. It’s certainly a good place for True Believers who have drunk the klimate koolaid and need another dose.
This is a great site – a lot of fun and I am on it several times a day because there’s always new stuff I never would have found out about if I hadn’t been here.
A few years back, when I first started looking into “Global Warming” to find out how it was caused and learn more about the disaster that was looming (yeah, I actually believed it then, for a little while) I visited R.C. for about a month. I made 2 or 3 comments, mostly of the form “But doesn’t this conflict with that?”, just trying to work out how things fit together. The response was either a long laundry list of links to their talking points (that were usually not germane to the question at hand), sometime delivered with a haughty air or condescension; or flat out rebuke if I dared to question the veracity of a point. Eventually any comment I made asking how two things could possibly fit together would just get snipped, no matter how nicely phrased on on topic they were.
So I sat back and watched for about another month and saw just how much a propaganda machine it was and how abusive it was of folks who, like me then, where just asking questions to find out how things really worked. But they just could not stand being asked about the internal inconsistencies of the AGW message and certainly could not accept the comparisons with the real world.
About 1/2 way through that process, someone made some snark about WUWT, so I came over here to look around. That’s when the propaganda ended and the education began. I didn’t know an AMO from an ENSO then 😉
Haven’t been back to RC since. Never really bothered with Climate Progress after the first visit. It was clearly an agenda engine.
Eventually a link lead me to ClimateAudit.org and I’ve sometimes lurked there, occasionally putting up a comment.
But by far WUWT is my favorite site. (Heck, I even like it more than my own 😎 After a while, I found I was making comments that repeated a point from an earlier time. So I started my own site as a place to put the text so that I’d not need to ‘clutter up the place’ with the same text each time. Just a comment pointing to the link. The rest, as they say, is history…
Though I, too, have to point out that post Climategate it’s become impossible to keep up with the threads. Where a topic used to stay in the ‘recent posts’ list long enough for a discussion of depth to develop, not it rolls off the bottom in just a couple of days. One or two comments is about it before it’s rolled on down. If I’m lucky, I can read most of the main articles, then scan 1/2 the comments or less. And often there are now 100 to 200 comments on a thread by the time I see it. So I don’t comment as much as in the past.
So while I’m glad to see the success and volume for Anthony, it’s a little less ‘homey’ than it used to be… but that’s OK. I can always cruise through the archives if I want to revisit ‘the good old days’ 😉
idlex says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:15 am
Enonym: July 27, 2010 at 5:14 am
I would be careful to take the number of visitors as a quality indicator.
No one else seems to have mistaken “quantity” for “quality.”
The reason I visit WUWT is to get a laugh, while I visit RC to get educated.
It shows.
Congrats, all those contributing. It has been a great “education” (and that is in the true meaning of the word) for me these last couple of years.
I’ve tried to keep up with CA, and having read The Hockey Stick Illusion, which I can whole-heartedly recommend, I’ll try some more. Steve McIntyre has been a massive influence on the debate and we would be in a sorry mess without him and his kin.
As for Anthony and his kin, we would also be in a sorry mess without him and them. I look forward to the report on the surface station with bated breath….
Keep it up, “Anthony and the Moderators” and all guest posters!
Excellent points above about the disservice that Real Climate provides through their dictatorial and condescending approach. I had e-mailed Gavin and warned him of the potential consequences of this approach well before the climate e-mails were released, but to no avail.
If global warming is as serious as they contend, then RC has performed a great disservice to the scientific community and public opinion. If actions should be taken and they are not, RC will have no one but itself to blame (although they will surely blame others).
RC should have engaged the skeptics and rationally discussed their concerns. Their failure or inability to do so makes one suspect they are driven by emotion and agenda rather than reason and truth.
And you’re doing much of this by word of mouth, a powerful tool used by real people with everyday concerns instead of NGOs dripping with vested interests. Well done!
I just visited Real Climate. Very little science there, lots of belief. It made me think of the following as a good theme song for them, as they stare into the eyes of Gaia. LOL
Thanks to WUWT I realised that I was a complete skeptical scientist, mostly skeptical of my carbon footprint having anything to do with global warming.
I am so proud of that now! However, here in South Africa I do think I am the only one around. Sorry for that. You could help me a bit by visiting my blog and thereby boosting my visit numbers (in which case my blog will move forward and get more attention and possibly attract more local readers).
In South Africa they have just introduced a green tax on cars, the amount of which depends on the amount of CO2 it puts in the air.
So the question that I have been sending to news papers (with the link to my blogs)
Can they do that green tax on cars without providing me with the actual proof that carbon dioxide is a green house gas?
http://letterdash.com/HenryP/the-term-climate-change-is-hiding-the-fact-that-global-warming-has-stalled
http://letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
Please check out the blogs – I just need a massive amount of visits – it will help me!
Thanks!
Pirates and Ninjas love watts up with that. Quality free stuff, though we would not mind a decent weather girl from time to time.
No offence but CTM is not hot.
I met ol mate Gavin, he is one spaven girly boy and fugly as they get, Last time I made port New Amsterdam. He does for weather what typhoid does for tourism.
Gratz.
“Enonym says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:14 am
I would be careful to take the number of visitors as a quality indicator. As for my self, I vist WUWT a few times each day, while I visit RC a few times each month. The reason I visit WUWT is to get a laugh, while I visit RC to get educated. But as I said, that’s me. It’s probably different for a lot of people.”
Yes Enonym, I get a good laugh here at WUWT every time I read a comment like yours!
As far as getting educated over at RC, now that is funny!
Even more telling is the stability of WUWT’s Alexa ranking, usually fluctuating between 15,000 and 20,000. Meanwhile, sites like Climate Progress swing wildly all over the place, sometimes their ranking even dropping below 100,000.
Staying on message, open to real discussion, admitting to mistakes, and being civil seems to pay its own dividend. And having a real sense of humor helps.
idlex says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:15 am
“Judging by the scale on the left had side, it looks to me like you’ve shown the graph upside down, and WUWT has been losing traffic steadily over the past couple of years, with a particularly steep plunge at the end of 2009. Real Climate is obviously way ahead of everyone.”
Aah ha! I see you are using the Mannian technique of reading graphs when you turn things upside down to get the answer you want.
I can only speak for myself , but I see this site as more of the USA Today of climate blogs. It’s a good place to get a quick overview as to the latest climate news/controversy that’s out there and for that reason I stop by to check the latest headlines quite often.
If I want to actually get deep into the science of climate change I’ll check other sites that are out there (Climate Audit, Real Climate, etc) but I usually only have the time to get involved in technical discussion in the evenings or on weekends when I don’t have other obligations.
How often does WUWT link to peer reviewed journal articles as compared to RC?
The answer to that question will tell you which site does the better job of educating its visitors.
Imapopulistnow says:
July 27, 2010 at 6:28 am
(…)
…makes one suspect they are driven by emotion and agenda rather than reason and truth.
——Reply: There is absolutley no doubt about it. I’ve visited their site and have been angered and disappointed by their approach every time. I’ve even left a couple of lengthy, scathing rebukes knowing that, while they undoubtedly would not get posted, one of the anti-scientists that moderate the site would have to read them. They will never regain respectability and I avoid them like the plague.
Enonym says:
July 27, 2010 at 5:14 am
“I would be careful to take the number of visitors as a quality indicator. As for my self, I vist WUWT a few times each day, while I visit RC a few times each month. The reason I visit WUWT is to get a laugh, while I visit RC to get educated. But as I said, that’s me. It’s probably different for a lot of people”.
You’re clearly desperate.
I notice a considerable step change in the WUWT Traffic Rank Trend from late 2009. Could that be caused by co2 warming, do you think, or something else?
Congrats Anthony and Team.
My gooood! A real tippingpoint!!
The trend is “unprecented” Im sure REALCLIMATE is hedding towards extintion before 2012. WWF will soon advertise that you can become a “climate scientist nanny”
for ten bucks to halt the extintion.
Congratulations Anthony, contributors and moderators! The sheer volume of information that passes through here is amazing, and I agree with others, it has become overwhelming trying to keep up and have a life too.