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Of course I'm always skeptical about this, because I know their telemarketers are reading from a generic script, and even the person reading the script probably thinks that "hit = page view." So I did a few basic checks on the site. Their main page has a PR5, they have about 16 backlinks that show up in Google's search, and they have about 1,500 pages indexed.
So obviously I'm not buying their imaginary 1,000,000 hits/day. Maybe they get about 1,000 page views/day.
This got me thinking.. I've seen other posts with correlations between number of pages on their site and visitors per day. For instance, 1 visitor/day per 5 pages on the site, or something similar. Of course, this varies with the site's PR. That is, two sites with 100 pages, the site with the higher PR is likely to get more visitors per day.
So I'm wondering if we can work on coming up with some sort of formula, unless one already exists, that takes into account number of pages, PageRank (which relates to backlinks), and anything else that would affect the number of visitors. Something possibly of the form:
Monthly Visitors = PR(x) * Pages(y)
...where x and y are constants.
Since the PR is not linear, it seems that a formula like would become increasingly inaccurate as PR increases.
And, of course.. visitors do not always come from Google, but in my experience most of them do (or a Google affiliate), so we should be able to come up with something.
Thoughts?
Your best bet is to look at their Alexa rank. My guess is a site with 1 million hits/day would be ranked around 10,000 - but that's just a guess.
<I don't think that can work. Visits primarily depend on the content, not the number of pages. It's easy to create a site with 5000 pages of content nobody wants to look at.>
But they don't know whether they want to look at it until they've already seen it. At that point, they've already become a visitor :-).
Content has a lot to do with keeping them there, and the particular keywords matter in the SERPs. But the actual content, whether or not the visitor will want to read it or not, doesn't seem to have much to do with the number of visitors, because they have to first be a visitor before they can decide that they don't want to read what's on your site.
I get plenty of people to my site that leave because I happen to accidentally rank high for a keyphrase, but I know that when they search for that keyphrase, they weren't looking for my content. In any case, they've already become a visitor.
Now I agree that the number of repeat visitors, or visitors that browse around the site because they like it, cannot necessarily be put into a formula, because that's almost completely dependent on the content and whether or not they want it. But I think there is a rather direct correlation between visitors and PR as well as the number of indexed pages (more indexed pages equals more content equals more keyword matches).
"2500 visitors, 50,000 hits"
Your average visitor hits 20 pages! Wow, I wish I could get that kind of ratio. I only average 3.2 pages per visitor.
I agree with mbennie. It has everything to do with content. Certain subjects are just more popular than others. PR and VISITORS do affect the HITS, but ultimately, it depends on what kind of content is making people want to surf further into a site. There are 10 page sites out there that average 9 hits per visitor. I have a 2,000 page site that only averages 3.2 hits per visitor.
<I agree with mbennie. It has everything to do with content. Certain subjects are just more popular than others. PR and VISITORS do affect the HITS, but ultimately, it depends on what kind of content is making people want to surf further into a site.>
Maybe I'm not explaining this correctly :-). I also agree that the content is what causes people to delve further into the site.. I am not disputing this.
What I'm referring to is getting the visitor there in the first place. This has little, if anything, to do with how engaging a site's content is.. because they won't know this until *after* they've become a visitor.
<"2500 visitors, 50,000 hits"
Your average visitor hits 20 pages! Wow, I wish I could get that kind of ratio. I only average 3.2 pages per visitor.>
You're right, that is a good ratio.. I'm around 4.5.. I'd sure like to be at 20 :-).
first point a site with 1,000 visitors per day could easily record 1 million hits per day ... a perfect example is one of the bikini (or worse) sites with 10 pics per page and people looking at 100 pages ... so forget hits entirely you want to focus on visitors (X) value per visitor
mbennie, alexa is also flawed but also as good a gauge as I've come up with ... my guess is that the site you mention 2,500 visitors per day is sitting around a 80,000 alexa ranking ... from what I've seen an alexa ranking of 50,000 equates to approx 5,000 visitors per day or 150,000 per month
4crests you have to be careful when someone says "hits" every image the server displays is a hit if a page has a fancy menu / graphics header split into a bunch of pieces it could get 50 "hits" for each visitor ... if they are getting 20 pageviews per visitor thats a different story
a couple good tools you may want to check out are ... the term suggestion tool and the view bids tool at overture
[overture.com...]
<Yup, lots of factors involved. pretty hard just to have a formula!>
Then the first step to coming up with a formula is figuring out what factors/variables are involved. I suggest PR and number of pages.
Most sites get a majority of their traffic from a much smaller number of keyphrases. This is where the content makes a difference. There are a lot more people that search on "web design" than search on any of the thousands of obscure items my site covers. Page 5 on web design will probably get you more traffic than all my #1's.
Then it sounds like what you're saying, and I would agree, that the interest of the content, that is, how interesting it is for someone to read, is not important in obtaining visitors, but the popularity of the content is. How's that for a run-on sentence :-)..
That is, a search for "web design" happens more often than a search for "obscure maroon widgets."
But wait a minute. The popularity of the content searched that matches the content on your site will increase the chances that you appear in the SERPs for a given search. But a higher popularity for a given search probably directly relates to the results of that search having more competition.
So, my site could be about "web design" or about "obscure maroon widgets", but that might have nothing to do with the number of visitors I get per day, because I'll always come up first for the latter search since there's no competition, though the search is uncommon; on the search for the former term, I'm competing with thousands of other sites and though I might be on the SERPs, I'll get few clickthroughs.
Again.. I think it comes back to PR and number of pages.
I think it comes back to PR and number of pages.
I know a gaming site with low PR that gets 2,500 uniques a day. I know a web design site with higher PR, PR7, that gets 47 uniques a day. The web design site isn't optimized at all, but they do have hundreds of links from thier client sites.
It's content, in my opinion.
<It's content, in my opinion.>
That could be a little ambiguous. Are you referring to the type of content, or the amount of content. When I say the number of pages, I'm referring to the amount of content. A site with a low PR with a lot of content can receive many visitors because it appears in many SERPs. Likewise, a site with a high PR with little content can receive few visitors because it appears in few SERPs.
PR and number of pages, not just PR :-).
To give you and idea of what I am talking about here. A search on "glacier peak volcano" brings up only about 9200 results. It is the most remote volcano in Washington, and I am betting that most people in WA do not even know its name, much less that it is an active volcano.
If it was to have an explosive eruption, there would suddenly be MILLIONS of searches on "glacier peak volcano" yet for at least a while the number of pages "in the index" would still be 9200 plus several thousand fresh pages. There just isn't a lot of competition, but there would be lots of searches.
Are you referring to the type of content, or the amount of content.
Nick,
I'm referring to type of content. I used to administer a construction related site with hundreds, no, more closer to a thousand pages of content. It was getting good traffic, and ranked high for the targeted search terms. With that many page, it allowed us to target over a hundred competitive keyphrases.
But it still doesn't compare to the traffic some of these gaming sites are getting. I myself am not at all interested in gaming, so I have a hard time understanding it.
If you could apply some type of value to the content, then the formula would get CLOSER to working. However, it still would be only an Average.
So if you applied a scale of 1-10 to the content and inserted it into the formula, then it would get closer.
Sex Related = 10
Gambling = 9
Genealogy = 8
Etc. I really have no idea what the most popular content is on the web. Just guessing a few examples.
So your formula would be:
Monthly Visitors=PR(x)*Pages(y)*Content(z)
Even this would be strictly an average, and wouldn't really mean anything. And there will always be sites WAY outside the averages.
Then you might want to start throwing in other major factors such as ADVERTISING. If someone spends $20,000 a month advertising, they MAY possibly get a much larger amount of visitors than a site 10 times larger, and with a much higher PR.
I assume that you were probably hoping for some actual numbers from people as opposed to a hundred reasons why what you're proposing won't work. Personally, I've no idea whether what you're proposing will work but, in any case, I'm happy to help out. At present, I have a PR7 site that's getting about 1 visitor each day (4300 total) for every 4 pages indexed by Google (80,000 total). Yes, there are other referrers mixed in with those numbers but, as with most other sites, the vast majority of my visitors are finding me through Google and its affiliates.
Hope this helps
ub
Or, gauge it by asking, "What is your Monthly Page View Statistic, and what is your Monthly Hits Statistic." That way you can tease out the different values.
"average visitor hits 20 pages" sounds skewed unless it's a bikini page deal. Sounds suspect.
Bottom line is that unless the quoted statistic comes from the Raw Server Access Logs, or a hit counter, there's no truth in it. Anything else is an extrapolation. (extrapolation is a fancy word for "guesstimate")
<If it was to have an explosive eruption, there would suddenly be MILLIONS of searches on "glacier peak volcano" yet for at least a while the number of pages "in the index" would still be 9200 plus several thousand fresh pages. There just isn't a lot of competition, but there would be lots of searches.>
I think thousands of sites would populate the SERPs through freshbot. But even this example is not the norm, so I think something can still be formulated that will estimate the norm.
mosley700 & 4crests,
<But it still doesn't compare to the traffic some of these gaming sites are getting. I myself am not at all interested in gaming, so I have a hard time understanding it.>
<If you could apply some type of value to the content, then the formula would get CLOSER to working.>
We may be able to associate a constant to each different type of content, but we would need to figure out how the type of content plays a roll in the number of visitors since I don't see how this affects search results. Perhaps it is repeat visit? Referrals from friends? And if some sites benefit from this far more than other sites, then it would be an important variable in the formula.
uber_boy,
<I assume that you were probably hoping for some actual numbers from people as opposed to a hundred reasons why what you're proposing won't work.>
That's definately one thing I'm looking for :-). Thank you for your statistics. As we may discovered, type of content could be a factor. So we may need to come up with some generic categories under which a site falls (or use the categories on the ODP?), then assign values to those categories.
Alexa rank is worthless! One of my sites receives around 150.000 vistors / month - alexa traffic rank says something around 240,000 ... so what does this tell me? Nothing! ;)
Some keywords are searched more than others. Although it seems there should be a direct correlation between more searches per day and more competition for that keyword, this isn't always true.
Two of my primary keywords are searched a similar amount each day. One has much less competition for the other.
To further demonstrate this point, I have a client that got into the top ten within 2 mos. of launching the site for single keyword search that gets 700 searches a day. This site has less than 20 pages, and only 2 inbound links (PR4 links at that).
One of my primary keywords is searched a similar amount each day, yet the competition for the top 10 is fierce. Sites have to have dozens of PR5 or better links to get to the top.
Also, just because you get to the top of the SERP for a keyword, doesn't mean you'll get the traffic. This is another common assumption, one I've made myself. But your site has to be targeted for what the audience is looking for. And just because you optimized it for the keyword, doesn't mean it is what the audience wants.
Different keywords will have different conversion ratios from the SERP into your site, depending on how well your SERP "ad" interests the searcher.
In short, trying to develop a formula for this is futile in my opinion, and would leave out too many important factors.
<In short, trying to develop a formula for this is futile in my opinion, and would leave out too many important factors.>
Leaving out important factors is always going to cause a heavily flawed formula. That's why we should identify these factors and find a way to have them implemented.
Here are the additional factors you will need to even come close. List of kephrases that produce hits with the site. Position in SERPs for each keyphrase. Average number of hits per position in the SERPS for that particular type of keyphrase (shoppers don't go as deep as people working on their disertation). The appeal of the Title and the snippet. Is there an indented result for the site and are the titles of the two links similar enough to help grab the surfers attention. Are there pieces of the keyphrase highlighted in the title or snippet. The number of people that do searches on that keyphrase.
Instead of defending you theory against what we are saying, you should apply scientific method and try to come up with ways to disprove it.
I do not think it is possible to even come close to having a useful calculation with out at least taking into account the category of the site.
<Here are the additional factors you will need to even come close. List of kephrases that produce hits with the site. Position in SERPs for each keyphrase. Average number of hits per position in the SERPS for that particular type of keyphrase (shoppers don't go as deep as people working on their disertation). The appeal of the Title and the snippet. Is there an indented result for the site and are the titles of the two links similar enough to help grab the surfers attention. Are there pieces of the keyphrase highlighted in the title or snippet. The number of people that do searches on that keyphrase.>
I understand what you are saying here.. but I think that PR and the number of pages, while somewhat less accurate, are inclusive of what you've listed above.
<Instead of defending you theory against what we are saying, you should apply scientific method and try to come up with ways to disprove it.>
My theory is simply that it's possible. Whether or not it's feasible is another story :-).
<I do not think it is possible to even come close to having a useful calculation with out at least taking into account the category of the site.>
That may be true, and it was suggested that putting a constant on the category might be a good idea.
What is your idea of having something that comes close? I'd be happy to start out with something that had a +/- 30% margin of error, and work from there to increase accuracy.
Even in the same categories, you cannot simply go by the number of pages and PR.
The major outdoor retail co-op in the US has a PR7 home page and 3730 pages in google. Many of those pages have very low PR. A small one man shop that makes outdoor gear has a PR7 home page and the lowest page of his 93 pages that I can find is a PR5, and I could only find 2 of those.
He considers it a very good day when he gets over 100 visitors to his site.
Now even if we are going to go so simple as to just go with the hom page PR and not consider the PR of individual pages, that major company would go broke if they were to only get 4000 visits per day. If I had to guess I would probably put their traffic at several hundred thousand unique visitors a day.
I just do not see how you can make a simple 3 or 4 factor calculation show you anything useful.
So you say:
The big site has 3730 pages, has a PR7 on their home page, and has unknown (to us) visitors.
The little site has 93 pages, has a PR7 on their home page, and optimistically has 100 visitors (not hits, not impressions) per day.
I have a small site with 87 pages indexed, has a PR5, and gets about 32 visitors per day.
uber_boy posted:
<I have a PR7 site that's getting about 1 visitor each day (4300 total) for every 4 pages indexed by Google (80,000 total).>
But the math doesn't work, because 1 visit for every four pages would be 4300 * 4 or 17200 pages, not 80000; or 80000 / 4 or 20000 visitors, not 4300.
<I just do not see how you can make a simple 3 or 4 factor calculation show you anything useful.>
And you may be absolutely right, but I plan to try before I come to that conclusion.
Yidaki's site gets more traffic than mine, but obviously his visotors don't have the toolbar installed. I estimate my actual placement to be around 75,000 and Yidaki's to be about 70,000.
"Alexa rank is worthless! One of my sites receives around 150.000 vistors / month - alexa traffic rank says something around 240,000 ... so what does this tell me? Nothing! ;)"
I'd be interested in this site doing a survey of monthly traffic and Alexa Placement. Might be an interesting way to get some real information for all of us.
Sean
