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.
Congratulations, by far the most honest and open blog on this subject.
More power to your collective elbows.
Someone upthread said that I should have used a winking smiley to let people know that my post was a joke. But I don’t agree. I think that people have to be left with an edge of uncertainty, an is-it-or-isn’t-itness. To put a winking smiley at the end of the post would have been like writing the summary of a detective story, and then adding onto the end: (P.S. The butler did it) It takes all the fun and mystery out of it.
I thoroughly disapprove of the use of smileys. Shakespeare didn’t use them. And nor should anyone else. 😉
[REPLY – #B^U ~ Evan]
I hope to see you more often on WUWT educating us about positive feedback and ignoring everything else if you like. Should we enter a cooling period I want to see you back here explaining how this occured and please don’t ever tell me it’s “cooling on the way to a warming world.” That would make me laugh.
If you want a really good laugh go to http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
It has been over 2 years now that I have been visiting WUWT.
At the time, I was just looking for relevant sites that might have had information regarding the history and/or myths of astrophysics. I could have cared less about A.G.W.( what some would call climate change.)
One of the things about this site that intrigued me, was the type of articles and those that responded to them. Having visited numerous websites with way too much conspiratorial influences, I was a bit skeptical at first of this one. But I used that skepticism to my advantage as soon as I realized that this site was frequented by noted scholars and scientists that either wrote posts here or commented on the posts by others.
It was refreshing.
WUWT became a stepping stone to re-evaluating my views about global warming and my knowledge of it. Though I still delve into researching astrophysics, I spend a great deal more time researching the science and politics of climate change.
Through just being skeptical by nature, I decided to use the information from this site and research and compare information from other blog sites and any scientific journals that I could read either on-line or at the library.
As a result of this research, I have since relocated to Alaska and work in the environment sector and started my own blog site.
I am given the opportunity to discuss my views with colleagues, co-workers and clients regarding climatology and the many facets of it.
Having a fairly firm grasp on the many topics and ideas that can spring from discussing A.G.W. , it has been a great advantage for me to help others think for themselves regarding this subject.
And WUWT is in large part responsible for my knowledge and understanding of climatology.
I suppose this my long-winded way of saying thanks to Anthony and the WUWT community.
Keep up the excellent work !
Good Day !
idlex says:
July 27, 2010 at 10:31 am
“I thoroughly disapprove of the use of smileys. Shakespeare didn’t use them. And nor should anyone else. ;-)”
I bet he would have had they’d been invented.
I am one of the new visitors since Climategate. This site has WAY too many facts. Every article sources where they got their data. They display graphs, often updated as they become available. News about what’s going on elsewhere in the news and blogosphere. It’s no wonder the warmists hate WUWT. Too much factual information.
Oh, and I used to be a 100% believer of man made global warming before Climategate. As a programmer, when I saw the HARRY_README file, that blew me away. There was no turning back after that. That’s what warmists don’t get. It’s not a PR war once people see the problems with their own eyes.
I’m still interested in what effect humans have on their environment. The degree of which has been overblown. However, I’m still interested in seeing for myself what is going on. While I can’t understand some of the more detailed topics, pretty much anyone will know that garbage in means garbage out regardless of the computer model that the warmists trot out. So even novices will find a great deal of use from WUWT and the topics therein to get a better sense of what is really going on.
Congrats on your site!
Congrats!
I used to read RC years ago after midnight on weekends. It was the best time to witness interesting questions getting some hang time before being nixed without being answered. I believe even Pielke Sr has been nixed a few times way back which has, since gaining a large readership for his own blog and media notoriety for himself, been switched to merely editing. RC, the schoolyard of climate blogs.
Nice trend analysis, Mike.
Funny thing is I’d never heard of any of the sites ranking higher than Anthony’s, except TheOilDrum.
Congratulations.
I also remember when you broke the million milestone. By the way, did you lose your Reverendship when the green monkey man disappeared?
OK S.
Ambiguous grammar.
I’d never heard of any of the sites that were listed above Anthony’s. Except TheOilDrum.
Just finished reading an article on Real Climate about how this winter was supposedly the warmest ever (according to GISS) – no mention of the impact of the big El Nino, but you would expect that from Real Climate as it is just another one of those inconvenient facts.
This was all part of an article preparing the faithful for September’s non-event in the Arctic’s ice extent.
Keep up the good work, Anthony.
“…(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).”
That’s one interpretation. Another is that the style, presentation and content of the two blogs are quite different. WUWT is a bright and breezy, magazine-style blog offering a variety of popular topics in an easily digestible form, whereas Real Climate tends to be more technical than topical. The two blogs are apples and oranges, and therefore not readily comparable.
As for snark and abuse, these are a feature of many blogs, including WUWT. I think it also pays to keep in mind that one’s “snarkometer” often depends on whether you’re on the giving or receiving end.
Brewster writes:
“How ’bout that! Hansen has a book out and the real scientists over at RC show that Hansen’s predictions back in ’88 are exactly on track…..Amazing!”
Yeah, but notice what they mean by prediction is introducing ad hoc hypotheses so that they can better fit their points to the graph. In the vernacular, this is known as Texas Target Shooting. An ad hoc hypothesis is something that is added to prevent falsification of a more important hypothesis. Some Climategaters have seen the importance of solar influences and have added a solar hypothesis to their existing hypotheses and have begun claiming that their hypotheses enable drawing a simple, smooth, closely fitted line through the points. Honest scientists would have said that their original hypotheses were false, before going back to the drawing board and introducing hypotheses about solar influences. But when it comes to scientific method, Climategaters are children, children, children.
In reply to Enonym, James Evans says: July 27, 2010 at 9:21 am
Enonym:
“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.”
One of the great things about this site is that you are allowed the freedom to speak your mind, even if the only things that come out of it are puerile cheap shots.
I have to agree with Enonym about quality vs quantity – puerile cheap shots aren’t a great reason to visit a website. WUWT may be useful for identifying scientific topics that are worth further investigation, but too often the science here can’t be trusted. The occasional “nuggets of gold” are buried a mess of pseudoscience and sloppy work. (For example, see the lack of units on the vertical scale on the graph on the top of this post which prevents any reader from unambiguously understanding what the data show – as opposed to what the author says the data shows!) One doesn’t get educated at RC either, all of the science at RC is slanted in one direction and generally has been over-publicized. Opposing points of view, sensible questions or real debate there is hopeless.
REPLY:
(For example, see the lack of units on the vertical scale on the graph on the top of this post which prevents any reader from unambiguously understanding what the data show – as opposed to what the author says the data shows!)
Might want to check this website before you accuse me or Mr. Lorrey of making bad graphs. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wattsupwiththat.com
Be sure to click on “Traffic Rank” and set the pulldown menu for Max. Add other site URL’s as needed.
– Anthony
bob says:
July 27, 2010 at 9:58 am
That’s why I go there and elsewhere, to examine the science, which I can’t do very well here, well because there is very little.
Surely, by “examine the science” you must mean “get educated”. That’s the trouble with Alarmists; they can’t (or won’t) think for themselves, and that is sad.
When I found this site it was like coming home.
So much info, so little time 🙂
Just tryin’ to add to what I know and WUWT does it for me every day.
Well done Anthony, good stuff indeed.
Look at that hockey stick! Was the alexa graph spliced with proxy and instrumental data????
Frank – The units are on the left hand side of the graph, AND if you had taken even 30 seconds to familiarize yourself with Alexa rankings (Anthony has already had at least one lengthy post in the past on just this topic) you would know that SINCE it is a ranking system, “lower” numbers equate to a higher ranking.
And as I said, you could have found this out in less than 30 seconds – I just confirmed that in a quick google search in which I was able to find a full page explanation in approx. 20 seconds.
So just who’s making the “puerile cheap shots” here?
bob says:
July 27, 2010 at 6:47 am
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.
Was that Pre or Post ‘The Teams’ redefinition of Peer Review
bob says:
July 27, 2010 at 9:58 am
H. R. says
“I’m going to have to assume you missed the e-mails from the CRU leak (CRUtape Letters) that discussed peer review, eh?”
I don’t read the mail of others without their permission, thank you very much.
But you do have their permission, they were released by an insider 😉
TJA says: July 27, 2010 at 10:08 am
I didn’t mention anything about alternative energy sources or the future or the consequences of it , just mentioned that we’re on the oil peak now as history and observations show. I still think Hubbert’s 1965 paper is a classic and quite relevant when presented in the face of quite hostile opposition. The US peaking in 1970 as he predicted echoes nicely with the current temperature peak it looks like we might be on now.
The thing with both of these is you don’t know until you’re looking back on the way down which we should find out with temperature in the next few years. I’m looking forward to ARGO data coming as everyone can quibble about historic thermometer readings and what they mean, but ARGO is currently actually measuring where the vast amount of the Earths energy is stored.
Enonym says: July 27, 2010 at 5:14 am
Enonym – You must be talking tongue in cheek. No one could be so misguided or so confused – then again I have read of people so confused in that they were found driving the wrong way down a motorway – perhaps you belong to that category?
Doug
bob says:
July 27, 2010 at 6:47 am
How often does WUWT link to peer reviewed journal articles as compared to RC?
====
Oh, no … yet another twist on that tired old Pachauri-peer-review crucifix before vampires mantra!
Looks like Bob hasn’t been paying attention to the very few nuggets of wisdom that can be found in the creative writing exercise otherwise known as “The Independent Climate Change E-mail Review” (aka the Muir Russell report). In “Appendix 5: Peer Review”, authored by the editor of The Lancet, on page 132, one finds:
“Unfortunately, there is evidence of a lack of evidence for peer review‘s efficacy”.
I find it extraordinary that these “climate scientists” have recently started whining about the need to communicate better with the media and the public, yet they appear to have learned nothing from the last six months. I rarely visit RC, because whenever I do, I feel as though the purpose of the site is to insult the intelligence of any reader with an ounce of common sense.
Recently, when presented with opportunities to communicate better with the media and the public, Michael Mann was remarkably reticent:
http://hro001.wordpress.com/2010/07/25/the-surprisingly-reticent-michael-mann/
But I digress …
Congratulations, Anthony, Guest Contributors and Mods on the imminent milestone … and thanks so much for all that you’ve done to shed light on the message of the doomsayers 🙂
That’s why I go there and elsewhere, to examine the science, which I can’t do very well here, well because there is very little.
But thanks for your comments
By bob on July 27, 2010 at 9:58 am
….I go to RC to see one sided arrogance of a breath taking nature. Thank you for saving ne the visit today.
@Bob
Blind Faith were short lived, (but good) rock band who soon went their separate ways.
But its good to know that you are leading a revival and that the first gig will be ‘peer review’
If you have never read the Climategate e-mails then I must ask you what you think the peer review ‘process actually does in practice, and what it actually achieves. I think that an examination of the facts will show you that your faith is badly misplaced.
Or if your scruples about secrecy are so important to you, let me just remind you of Prof. Jones public comment to the British House of Parliament. When asked how often peer reviewers had asked to see the methods and data in his long oeuvre of published papers, he replied..’they have never asked’
Peer review does not do what you (and I initially) thought it did. It does not give any form of guarantee that even the basic methods used are correct and have been done competently. And none whatsoever that the conclusions are valid.
And there is strong circumstantial and anecdotal evidence that the process within the small world of ‘climate science’ has fallen victim to groupthink.