Analyzing The Instapundit
Dean
People who run weblogs that focus on political events (either full-time or part-time) often suffer from what I call Instapundit-envy. The Instapundit (a.k.a. Glenn Reynolds) runs a hugely popular weblog, and he often links to other bloggers. When he links you, you get what they call an "insta-lanche," as thousands of his readers come to your site. No other high-profile weblogger does this as often as he does. (I probably link other bloggers as often as he does but I'm not in his league in terms of traffic.)
One of the things I've often told up-and-coming bloggers is to get over instapundit-envy. It's a waste of time. It's fun to one day get thousands of readers you never had before because he linked you. But that rush quickly goes away. Most of his readers will come by, read one thing you wrote, and then leave never to return.
One of the advanced stages of Instapundit-envy is when you see some people complaining that if the Instapundit "favors" you, you get a lot more traffic and are more popular. I've always thought this was a bogus claim. It just doesn't make sense: when Instapundit links you, you get a rush of several thousand readers, and then they all go away. After all, they're interested in reading him, and not you.
Anyway, now Dave Schuler seems to have confirmed my suspicions. He recently did an interesting analysis of the Instapundit's linking habits. Look at it carefully. Guess what? Out of 959 different sources the Instapundit linked in September of this year (the month's not out but this is enough data anyway), he linked most of his sources only a tiny number of times, and the ones he linked more than a handful of times are mostly professional organizations like the New York Times, the Washington Post, or Reason magazine.
What I found most assuring of all, though, was Dave's conclusion: there is no relationship between how a blog is ranked in the ecosystem and how often it's linked by the Instapundit. Which is no surprise at all to me, but it's neat to see Dave confirm with numbers what I'd always been pretty sure must be true.
Bottom line: Instapundit is not a kingmaker. The success or failure of any weblogger has nothing to do with whether he links you or not. He can give a nice rush of attention to some people, but that's the end of the story.
Mind you, he's a good guy. I hope to meet him some day since he inspired me early on, as did several other bloggers with far less traffic than his. But he's not the hub of the blogosphere. He's just not.
If you want traffic, you do it the old fashioned way: do good work, and network with others.
Gee, come to think of it, isn't that good advice for most of life's endeavors?
Related Posts (on one page):
- Want To Raise Your Blog Visibility?
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- Analyzing The Instapundit
But I have my other regulars that I get around to, some not even linked to instapundit.
Mind you, I do think that you can build a readership by securing links from other blogs. But it has to be more targeted marketing and that's just not possible through Glenn's site—his readership is too broad.
I think Glenn may think I'm stalking him ;-). I'm not. It just happens that the kinds of network interrelationships that I'm interested in looking at are particularly easy to track through his site. I'll probably do Eschaton, too, for similar reasons.
My favorite readers are the regular commenters I have. They are regular enough that I know they come to my site specifically to see my perspective on events. There are not many of them, but it is nice to know you have an audience even if no one else will link to you.
I'm just sayin' ;)
Nah. Whine, bitch, and sue. Not as effective, but less work.
;-)
Indeed.
Reynolds can't make someone who sucks popular (for more than a day)... but he can give someone attention. A good blog that Reynolds links to will gain long-termreaders, even with a single link. (As you say, multiple links will increase that, probably nonlinearly.)
As far as I can tell, the vast majority of blog traffic is via link rather than search engine hits; even the best sites don't get traffic ex nihilo, and an Instalanche is a giant lump of traffic, some of which will "stick" to a good blog.
Huh? What?
I was linked by Instapundit ONCE in the period Dave examined. Where do you get 23, Casey?
My guess would be that in the last two and a half years, I've maybe been linked by the Instapundit a dozen times or so.
Well but that's like any form of advertising. If people see the same thing over and over again it starts to seep in. But how many can you expect to get that kind of attention? A half dozen? A dozen?
I'll show you my traffic patterns some time and you'll notice consistent growth in my readership even though I've gone six months at a stretch without a single link from Instapundit.
(I'm still flabbergasted at Casey's claim that I received 23 links from the Instapundit. I doubt if I've gotten even half that many in the last two and a half years.)
Bottom line: Screw visitors. You shouldn't care about visitors, but about READERS - people who come back to your site time and time again. And there's only one way to develop a steady readership: hone your talent and market it aggressively.
I think most bloggers get frustrated because this takes time. My own blog is averaging 300-400 visitors/day with a readership in the hundreds - impressive for eight months of work, but a far cry from the tens of thousands of hits that blogs like Dooce and Andrew Sullivan pull down. Just as in "traditional" media, however, you have to pay your dues and show your staying power before the masses will flock to your door.
And getting fired for your blog helps, too.
Instapundit does seem to be mainly a portal to other blogs and sites, but I must add that Glenn Reynolds has written some very good essays as well.
I must mention that a very interesting blogger I know sent me an e-mail a few months ago stating that a certain blogfriend of mine "has his head so far up InstaFascist's *** it's a wonder he can still breathe". I disagree with that, but this very interesting blogger I'm talking about (whose initials are "A.S." and he's a man's man, but he's _not_ Andrew Sullivan) made an astute observation in that e-mail to me: he called Steven Malcolm Anderson a "fucking asshole moron bastard". I find it very difficult to dispute that assessment.
Off with his head, indeed!
Now who's exaggerating? Heh.
It's true. I dropped by Instapundit, did a site search on "Dean Esmay," and got 21 hits.
After seeing your reply, I just now went back and checked, and found that I was in error. 21 hits, but only 20 links. One, with the heading of "impostor alert," merely mentioned Dean's name (in reference to someone posing as Dean on another blog), with no link.
So it's only twenty. Sue me! I'm not Dan Rather, I'll admit when my research was flawed! Heh heh heh...
P.S. That's 20 since February. Heh, indeed!
Casey: Hmm, 20 times since February? Well, that surprises me, but then I don't much pay attention. I know I've been growing at about the same pace for two and a half years, and I'm just not willing to say that it was Herr Puppy Blender who made that happen for me. My philosophy has always been that I welcome links from anybody--except for cretins who lie about me, of course.
And are willing to pay the price for that heavier traffic, which is considerable.
You probably haven't noticed any Instalanches since a)you're already fairly high-volume, and b)I noticed that many of the links referencing you were multiple. That is, Glenn would mention, X, Y, Dean Esmay, and Z about a particular thread or topic. Dunno how many readers clicked on every link.
As for Sitemeter; it's a tool, and use thereof depends on your priorities. I'm not pushing myself to get up with the big boys, but it's nice to see if I'm getting anyone at all, and if there are any patterns.
BTW, thanks for the advice about putting the meter on every entry page. That did make a big difference!
But the past few days I noticed an increase over what that would account for, so I logged in, and found out that I was getting a fair number of hits on searches relating to "SpaceShip One photos."
Call me geeky, but that sort of thing interests me. :)