10.28.2015 10:54 AM

Advertisers, take note!

This little web site – celebrating Year Fifteen in a few weeks! – attracts more than 140,000 visits a month, with many more during election campaigns.  I knew that.

What I didn’t know is what Alexa related to me this morning: the demographics of those who lurk here.

Given the predominance of male (or apparently male) commenters, I generally figured the broader readership skewed male, too. Apparently not.

Screen Shot 2015-10-28 at 11.44.28 AM

16 Comments

  1. Kevin T. says:

    There you go, this IS a ‘friend zone’.

  2. harvey bushell says:

    How does Alexa come up with those stats? I can see page hits and geography being pretty straight forward but breaking it down to gender, education etc escapes me. Google doesn’t help nor does reading Alexa’s own explanations on rankings.

    • Warren says:

      Good question. I wondered the same thing. And Google analytics (I checked after getting the surprising Alexa result) say something different – and show the number of viewers much higher.

      • harvey bushell says:

        Other websites I visit, Talking Points Memo for eg, periodically offer questionnaires/polls (which they have to pay for) to break down view stats into those types of categories. You’d think that if Alexa can do it reliably without any additional info that would not be necessary.

      • Bluegreenblogger says:

        yeah, I think Alexa is sampling a different population than google. A panel consisting of a subset of all traffic, as seen by Microsoft, and various other data sharing partners. Google analyzes everything, by virtue of their dominance of search. Alexa analyzes that traffic for which they have good data. Alexa is trying to get specific marketing friendly data into decision makers hands. WordPress should give you good numbers on unique visitors, right on this sites dashboard.

  3. MF says:

    Apparently Alexa uses a sample of Internet users from their own panel, and uses that to estimate the demographics of visitors to the site as a whole.

    https://www.quora.com/How-does-Alexa-provide-user-demographics

    So basically, it’s like polling. 😉

  4. Maps Onburt says:

    I think you may be misreading the males/females thing. It isn’t saying that 60% of your viewers are female… but rather that your site attracts more females than most sites of this nature do. You could still have that ratio with 80% males (I’m a guy BTW), and 20% females, if 15% of the female population normally visits sites like this. Even in your comments though, I’ve noticed that there are more women that feel comfortable to identify that way on this site than most. I suspect that is because of your thoughtful moderation. Not a lot of testosterone allowed! That said, I think what it is really telling you is that your followers are educated, smart and feel comfortable coming here. You can read comments on your blog on pretty much any given day and see that.

  5. RogerX says:

    But if you look at the WK forum monikers, you will see most are using male names! Why are the many female posters hiding behind male names? Or is Alexa FOSh, because I doubt most on this forum have “college” (‘university’ in Canada) educations. I do, but most of the Harper haters can’t possibly have higher edumacations!

    • MF says:

      Lefties have higher education, it’s just in degree areas like General Arts. 😉

      • Bluegreenblogger says:

        considering it is the general arts that produced civilization, that is a good thing. Higher education is wasted on ‘skills’ training. So many incompetent scientists and engineers out there, unable to construct a logical argument, or manage their research budget!

    • Matt says:

      “college” and “university” are two different things in Canada.

      College = Post secondary institutions like Seneca College of Applied Arts and Technology, Centennial College, Humber College ect. in Ontario. Most have set one, two or three year programs.

      University = University of Toronto, Ryerson, Queen’s ect.

      • RogerX says:

        I know…. and for you I should have written “college” in the USA and university in Canada …. because I believe Alexa is US-based. Thanks for your detailed comments for USians reading this website.

  6. Michael Smith says:

    Just added CNBC Warren, can’t wait till the shit show!

  7. Robert K. says:

    Hoping you made great gobs of cash with the just not ready ad during the campaign. I thought it curious they would advertise here when it is likely the people who visit have strong views one way or another. Somewhat akin to the idea that people who read newspaper editorials already have their minds made up. I dunno. Anyway hope it helped keep your gas tank full back and forth to the lake.

    Congrats on 15 years. I’m trying to figure out if I have been reading it that long.

  8. Richard says:

    15…wow. Not bad for a “don’t call it a blog” website. Congrats Warren and thanks for all the info over the years.

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