Comments on: Social Networks Steal Your Search Engine Traffic

By: Stephen Lee

Stephen Lee — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 08:41:34 +0000

This so called win-win situation that they want you to believe is really tilted towards their favor. I do get a fair bit of traffic from social networking sites, but I find they tend not to stick around for long - contributing to a high bounce rate. Check out Stephen Lee's last blog post..Could your Blog Benefit from a Redesign ?

By: JB

JB — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 18:43:00 +0000

I think it's a little too simplistic to assume that these other sites value lies in the direct traffic that they send to you. The piece that is missing is the quality of the traffic that they send you, and whether you would have received that traffic directly if they didn't rank higher for the same content. From a pure search engine ranking perspective, that makes sense, but what if the people who are finding you are not coming from a search in google? And what if some of those people would not have found you at all otherwise, but liked your site enough to subscribe, or to become regular readers. For this type of site, I'd take regular readers over quantity any day. Check out JB's last blog post..Stressed Out? Take Time Off!

By: Alexander

Alexander — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 23:18:30 +0000

I note a funny contrast between this post against social networks and your new addition of the socializing buttons in your rss feed. Schizophrenia ? LOL Check out Alexander's last blog post..Gravatars: the best way to advertise and brand your blog for FREE

By: Luis Gross

Luis Gross — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 23:03:25 +0000

Hey,

Interesting post. I’ve always seen this happen — like all the time. I never really payed any mind to it. However, it does make a lot of sense to me.

I never submit my own content to Digg, but what’s going to stop other people from doing it?

As long as other people submit your content to Digg, the problem will be there — I think.

Great post!

P.S. that jumping alligator was driving me nuts; I could barely concentrate on what you wrote.

By: Zath

Zath — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 11:19:31 +0000

Another interesting read Garry – I personally stopped actively submitting my posts a few months back and had only done a couple since then. The main reason I’ve been submitting in the past, which I believe I read here on the site was for dofollow backlinks – do you think it’s not even worth “competing” with your Digg/Propeller entry on the Google results page?

This has made me take anotehr look at my Google Analytics (something I do too much as it is really anyway), but anyway, I see that MyBlogLog sent me 13 visitors in the last month and BlogCatalog wasn’t much better with only 31. I’m thinking that the real-estate I’m giving to those widgets on my sidebar isn’t worth that level of traffic.

You’re really making me think these days Garry, perhaps there does come a time to focus on what you’re good at – I spent a couple of hours yesterday going through Stumbles that had been sent to me – mind you at least I get a over a 1000 visits in a month from that source, but it probably isn’t worth my time in what I could do in terms of researching and writing a post which could earn me money.

Check out Zath’s last blog post..Zath Premiership 08/09 Update

By: goldcoaster

goldcoaster — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 23:39:07 +0000

So, Garry, I understand it doesn't give you direct traffic and some checks for search terms have BlogCatalogue etc ranking higher than the actual blog post but are these still good to get your blog ranking better in the search engines or not. Check out goldcoaster's last blog post..Googles New Adsense For Feeds

By: Sunday Link Love and Annoucements | The Net Fool

Sunday Link Love and Annoucements | The Net Fool — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 22:47:52 +0000

[...] Garry Conn – Social Networks Steal Your Search Engine Traffic [...]

By: Top CD Rates

Top CD Rates — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 22:33:24 +0000

You need three main things for ranking. Properly selected keywords, Proper on-site SEO, and links (as far as Google, right).

So if your post is in Stumble, Digg, MyBlogLog that is 3 links.

Then some fellow bloggers link, let’s say 5 links.

Maybe some deep link directories, another 2 links.

Won’t those 10 links push you to the top (assuming no one else had done the indentical with 11 links). I realize this is rather simplistic.

So someone sees your heading in Digg. They vote. They need to click-thru to read the entire post, right. And that traffic is potential money, right?

You did show 28,000 visits from Stumble. Are you saying those visits didn’t earn enough money to compensate for the fact that you also helped Stumble have better rankings?

At this point, I haven’t had much time for the social stuff. Sounds like you are of the opinion that, that is just as well.

By: Jarret

Jarret — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 21:46:41 +0000

Wow, those are some absolutely horrible referral stats Garry!

I think I will no longer be adding my content to MyBlogLog as well. Like you said, we (those that are adding their post information into MyBlogLog) are only providing them with traffic while they provide us with very little to no traffic whatsoever.

This is a really great article that you have wrote. I think the only people that have success with social networking are those that boast about how much they make online. All of the newbies are interested in how much they make, they want to know how they themselves can make that much and they will do anything for the blogger/marketer in the hopes that they receive attention.

By: Garry Conn

Garry Conn — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 18:14:24 +0000

Ian, I appreciate you taking the time to come here and leave me a supportive comment. However, I fully aware of the intention and the purpose behind MyBlogLog.com. Intention is very much different from action. Meaning, while I hear what you are saying, it is the goal of MyBlogLog.com to help blogs get more exposure, while unfortunately that is NOT the case. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Blogs are helping MyBlogLog.com get traffic, not the other way around. I usually keep my traffic stats private. However, at times I have to really buckle down and use certain elements to get my point across. From August 1st thru August 14th 2008, I have had 75,055 unique visits to my blog. MyBlogLog has only contributed 133 visits towards this total. Year to date... (this is where it gets juicy) I have had near 790,000 unique visits to my blog. Only 989 visits of the 789,219 unique visits I have had all year came from MyBlogLog.com. August 1st Thru August 14th

75,055 Unique Total
46,351 Google Unique
8,132 Stumble Unique
133 MyBlogLog Unique

Year To Date (01/01/08 thru 08/22/08)

789,219 Unique Total
532,956 Google Unique
28,932 Stumble Unique
989 MyBlogLog Unique

While I do appreciate you taking the time to comment, please... lets make no mistake. MyBlogLog.com does not send me traffic. And I can only imagine how much free traffic I as well as thousands of other bloggers send to MyBlogLog.com. I have no hard feelings against MyBlogLog.com. I think its a fun community. But, MyBlogLog.com does not send me traffic, and traffic is what I need to make money. What MyBlogLog.com does do, is builds search engine friendly and machine readable pages off my syndicated content which in return allows MyBlogLog.com to grow in the search engines such as Google and your very own, Yahoo! Inc.