Tracking the Russia blogosphere

Hi Andy,

Thanks for the link!

Is that your obligatory apology for Russian inadequacy? I don’t see how such apologies will lead to improvement in Russia, more likely to cause Russians to stay lazy and ignored.

When you say “I’d imagine” that means you’re “extrapolating” too, doesn’t it? I’d be interested to see evidence of Technorati doing a “poor job” as you say. In any case, you are really missing the point here. Of COURSE Technorati leans heavily in English content, THAT’S the POINT. And the English content for other countries (France, China, etc.) is far greater than for Russia, hence other countries are better understood by English speakers than is Russia (because they’ve made themselves more interesting). You’re also ignoring the fact that, at an average income of $2.50 per hour very few Russians can access Russian-language blog content, and very few foreigners can read it. That’s why it’s so sad that so few blogs (including yours) fail to exert themselves to translate the Russian blogosphere. Global Voices deserves great kudos for its yeoman work in in this regard.

I think you’ve also missed the point of a Google search, which is to find TEXT references to the blogs not links. Technorati already provides the link data, and since it lists 1,500 links to my blog while your search only reveals 260, that’s another indication that your methodology is pretty much useless (and that Technorati is better at finding links than Google, not surprising since that’s its job). The purpose of a Google search is to uncover people writing about the blogs WITHOUT linking to them (in newspaper articles, and such, for instance).

If you believe that Russia Blog has 2,000 daily visitors without using commerical techniques, then that’s a pretty rough indictment of their blog, since all those visitors generate so few comments and only the same number of linking blogs as mine does. It’s the same as saying that Russia Blog is useless pablum. Which may of course be true. After all, when was the last time you linked to Russia Blog? Hopefully, now that RB has started to brag about its traffic, it will be more open in allowing access to its traffic data, as you have done.

Who said the same people are returing to Russia Blog over and over? Do you have any basis for that statement? The whole point of my comment was that it might be that is NOT happening. Commerical traffic generation uses key words, adds and such to draw people to the site without knowing what it is, different people all the time, hoping some will like it. I thing your suggestion that 2,000 of the same people daily return to Russia Blog over and over but don’t comment on it is rather mind-boggling and utterly speculative. I’d love to know whether it’s true or not, just like you. If it proves to be, I’ll start attacking them in a much more aggressive manner.

LR – I think the survey is valuable, and interesting – I just have a couple of quibbles with some of the methodology, which I think is flawed in places.

With regard to google searches, I still don’t think a text search is a particularly useful way of drawing a comparison in this case.

You’ve cornered the market on the term “La Russophobe” and as a result, every result on that text string is pretty clearly about you and your blog.

Using “Russia Blog” isn’t so helpful. It draws far more results than a search for “La Russophobe”, but I suspect that is because it is a more generic term, less readily linked to one particular blog or blogger. And I’ve already detailed my concerns about the use of the term “Real Russia Blog.”

As for Technorati’s difficulties dealing with foreign languages, I’ve posted one link already. There are more out there, and even David Sifry’s state of the blogosphere reports make occasional reference to the issue.

Finally, I apologise unreservedly for extrapolating. Out of pure curiosity, however, I’d still be interested to hear if you have any evidence as to whether Russia Blog uses commercial traffic generation techniques, or whether it is a supposition on your part.

RUMINATOR: My post clearly notes the possible limitations of Alexa. Frankly, I think it’s totally outrageous that you would slander them by claiming the are “totally discredited” without citing a single shred of evidence in this regard. But thanks for the link to another source, I’ll look into it.

ANDY: I understood your purpose in this post, and I had the same one in return in my comment. I’m delighted to have my methodology and my conclusions challenged, that’s the only way they can become sounder. But I think your methodology is just as open to question as mine (I assume you too delight in being probed and challenged).

ANDY: To address the substance of your comment:

(1) Google has nothing to do with the methodology of my survey. My methodology relies on Technorati and Alexa. Google is only mentioned when I argue in favor of discounting Russia Blog’s signficance, and it’s only one of many diffent points I’ve made as indications that Russia Blog’s traffic is illusory.

(2) “Real Russia Project” is just as unique as “La Russophobe.” If they really have 2,000 visits per day in genuine traffic, RRP should have a lot more Google play that it does. So should the name “Yuri Mamchur” which is unique and has existed in the blogosphere far longer than “La Russophobe.”

(3) I think the fact that there are less than two dozen truly significant English-language Russia blogs, and that many of them are laconic or moribund over the past year, is clear proof that Russia is not a topic of great interest in the world due to Russia’s alienation of the world with its behavior. International tourism to Russia also conclusively establishes this. The Technorati data merely confirms it. The fact that there are Russian-language blogs not listed on Technorati is flatly irrelevant to this point. Nossik’s blog is near the top of Technorati’s list, and many others are are listed. But these blogs, though written in Russian, aren’t necessarily ABOUT Russia, and they can’t be accessed by non-Russian speakers even if they are. I believe it’s been clearly proven that Russia has utterly failed to make a significant impression in the blogosphere compared to other countries, and maybe this is even the way Russia wants it. That attitude has been eating away at Russia for generations now. It’s sad. Russia can either change and improve or stay the same and fail. I don’t think we should encourage the latter by rationalizing their manifest failure.

(3) I note that conspicuous by its absence is any attempt on your part to defend the content of Russia Blog and any reference to a link by you to that content. Your own lack of interest in Russia’ Blog’s stream of intelligent-design-mongering goo is also pretty convincing evidence that their significance is illusory.

(4) If I had any evidence of how they generated their traffic, I’d publish it. As of now, I don’t even know what their traffic actually is, I can’t even make an educated guess based on Alexa. I know their ranking is relatively high, but this could be to a freak occurrence such as you experienced with Digg. Naturally it’s speculation, which I’m perfectly entitled to do. Their claimed daily traffic is weirdly and wildly out of touch with their Technorati data and their comments, which gives rise to the speculation. Part of my reason for making it is to induce them to come clean on this issue, since they themselves have raised it and since they make no actual data avaiilable as of now. If you believe their claimed traffic is totally legitimate, how do you explain these facts? Why would 2,000 real visitors leave so few comments and generate so few links in the blogosphere? Are they zombies? Or is it that my readers are just so much more dynamic and intelligent?

(5) Do you really stand behind the statement that spending money on things like banner ads and keyword searches and spam can’t generate traffic on a blog? Frankly, I would be suprised if you would do so, and Discovery Institute is a well-funded organization so I see no reason why they wouldn’t support their blog financially and seek to increase its traffic. There’s nothing wrong with that, I’d do it if I were in their shoes. All I’m saying is that it’s silly to compare the traffic of a blog that is doing it to one that isn’t.

LR – just to answer a couple of your points:

3. The conspicuous absence of my defense of Russia Blog’s content (or for that matter the content at LR, or anywhere else)is probably because I was trying to keep this post on the topic of statistics about the relative popularity of blogs, rather than their relative quality.

5. I didn’t actually say that spending money on traffic generation has no affect on blog traffic, merely that I didn’t really think it would have a major impact on Russia Blog’s daily hits. I don’t doubt that one could bring in a lot of hits by using commercial traffic generation techniques, but I doubt that Russia Blog’s backers would really want to spend the kind of money needed to bring in 2,000 hits a day, or even a significant proportion of that amount.

On a monthly basis, to drive that level of traffic (using Adsense, for the sake of argument) would cost hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. A big investment for comparatively little reward.

True – it’s speculation.

I’ve actually featured Russia Blog posts here on more than one occasion – see, for example, this post on whether Russia should waste its money on nuclear weapons.

Perhaps the Ruminator hasn’t been around for a few days.

I think it’s fair to say that Alexa does have its weaknesses. A quick google search for “alexa reliability”, for example, brings plenty of results.

The general consensus, from my reading, is that Alexa is reasonably good for ranking high traffic sites, but less reliable when it comes to smaller sites.

But, in the absence of reliable statistics data for all blogs, its certainly better than nothing.

I’m quite proud that my Russia blog commentary boosted Russia Blog’s popularity. A point that was acknowledged to me by Charles Ganske.

My Russia Blog articles (like my last one on Kosovo) attracted a good number of quality posts in the respective Comments section following those articles. Articles which were often cited by other venues.

I’ll continue to provide such quality material, whether or not Johnson’s Russia List, Russia haters and some court appointed Russia friendlys choose to censor such Russocentric commentary.

Russia Blog and other blogs like Siberian Light do a great service by qualitatively providing what others don’t. To go against that is counterproductive.

Nice to see my periodically used “Cheers” ending put in use.

Cheers!

Mike

LR: No apology – sorry to disappoint.

In my world-view, providing office overheads is not commercial, or artificial (whatever that might be) traffic generation.

And, as I’ve said before, even if Russia Blog has greater financial clout than other blogs – that still has no bearing on the quality (or lack thereof, depending on your point of view) of the actual words that comprise Russia Blog.

He’s made NO ATTEMPT to deny that he enagages in commercial traffic generation, even though the charge is there in black and white. You know as well as I do that means he’s admitted he does it, just as I said.

Kim – that’s a load of old rubbish, and you know it.

Refusal to enter into an argument does no constitute an admission. Not everyone has the time, or the inclination to refute every charge that you throw out. While you may be indefatigable in asking questions, not everyone has the time, or the inclination, to answer them.

And, people also have the right not to answer them without guilt being inferred from their silence.

I think it is not always appropriate to compare sites that generate traffic commercially with those that use more organic growth, and probably have more repeat readers.

However, I haven’t seen anything yet to suggest that Russia Blog actually engages in commercial traffic generation.

I would think it should be relatively simple to establish whether Russia Blog does actually engage in commercial traffic generation – look for adverts.

As for biases, these come from a lot of sources. Whether Russia Blog’s authors, or parent organisation have a view on intelligent design is somewhat relevant (although, in my opinion, not all that relevant to their Russia commentary per se). The information is publicly available, so readers can find this out if they want. And, given that you regularly point it out, I doubt there is anyone in the Russia blogging community who is now unaware of the Discovery Institute’s views on the matter.

Given this, I think people can probably be relied on to draw their own conclusions.

La Russophobe has accused us of copyright infringement for excerpting or republishing articles in the public domain (while always providing links and citations to the original source)- which is exactly what he/she does! This is what I mean when I describe LR’s general m.o. as “pointless hectoring” – constantly accusing others of doing what he/she does.

After I answered this person’s questions in a straightforward manner, he/she/they proceeded to obsess over the finer points of Yuri’s education, and demanded that we do all of their Russian language research on Yuri’s CV for them – just as they previously demanded that we delete or rebut any comment they didn’t like posted on Russia Blog.

From the very get-go LR has twisted my words. When I told this person or persons that I couldn’t possibly fact check every single comment, this was distorted into an admission that I don’t fact check posts put up on Russia Blog. Basically, this person attacks our credibility while consistently distorting other people’s statements, all while remaining anonymous.

Let me explain why the arguments about comments and Technorati tags are mostly rubbish – even though we have had far more on average comments per post than LR does (out of all the LR posts currently up that do have comments, I count 5 and 7 as the largest numbers), but then again, he/she/they would just argue that this is because we use “commercial” means to generate traffic – though there is not a single shred of evidencefor this charge, it is admittedly pure speculation on LR’s part. Nonetheless, the main reason arguing about comments is futile is that you could have hundreds per post from two or three people going back and forth (many of Averko and LR’s posts had just these type of controversies) and some people do put like to use sock puppet comments. At any rate, most of the comments in our filter are deleted because they’re generated by spambots, and sometimes real human comments get accidentally deleted. The only comments besides LR’s (under various names) that I have deleted were either obscene, incitements to racial violence, or sock puppets complaining about one particular Russia Blog contributor that were irrelevant to the post.

Even if it were true that more blogs do link to LR, does that mean more people are actually reading LR or were these just links from single digit trafficked blogs no one has read in months? That is why Andy is right to point out that the Technorati stats are mostly meaningless.

Calling DI a “single issue organization” is simply false, considering that so much of the organization’s total budget ($1.3 million) comes from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation-funded Cascadia Center for Regional Development, which not only covers transportation in the Pacific Northwest but has also branched out to energy issues. The conference they sponsored in 2006 at the Microsoft campus included speeches by Senators Sam Brownback, Maria Cantwell, and former CIA Director James Woolsey. DI also has the Technology and Democracy Project with an office in D.C. pushing for telecom reform (basically making it easier to roll out broadband and opposing so-called “net neutrality”).

None of these issues has anything to do with the Center for Science and Culture, and all of my work at DI was for the Real Russia Project, the Cascadia Center, or the Technology and Democracy Project. So all of his/her points are irrelevant or ad hominem, which is par from the course from this person or groups of persons. We have no idea who funds LR or whether it is one or many people, though the timing of his/her/their emails suggests someone based in the UK or Europe.