I was digging around in the Google Analytics stats for Digital Photography School this afternoon and did some analysis of some of the most popular pages on the blog over the last month.
One page that has done exceptionally well and continues to bring in reasonable traffic even six weeks after it was written is 11 Surefire Tips for Improving Your Landscape Photography.
The post has had just over 93,000 page views from around 70,000 visitors since I posted i on 18 May. Here’s how the traffic was spread out over this time (you’ll want to click it to enlarge the graph in a new window):
The Spike – Days 1-7
You can see very clearly that there was a real spike of traffic in the first couple of days. The day after I posted this tutorial hit the popular page on Digg. Here’s how the traffic came in over the first week (i’ve rounded these numbers to the nearest 50):
18 May (the day I posted) – 6,400 page views – largely from direct traffic (via RSS). StumbleUpon generated 405 page views.
19 May – 30,000 page views – 21,000 from Digg, another 2500 from RSS and regular readers, plus another 6000 or so from other sites like Delicious, Popurls and other blogs/sites linking up. StumbleUpon generated 575 page views.
20 May – 6200 page views – Digg sent 1550 of them, another digg like site (Wykop) sent 1200, direct traffic was around 900, other sites still sent a bit and StumbleUpon hit 1050 page views. (note, Google started sending a little traffic on this day).
21 May – 6600 page views – Wykop sent 2500, Digg sent 1100, direct traffic was 700, Google sent 200 and StumbleUpon continued to rise to 1300.
22 May – 3350 page views – Digg was down to 600 page views while StumbleUpon was at 953. Other sites and Google made up the rest.
23 May – 2250 page views – Digg sent 300 page views and Stumbleupon 800. Other sites the rest.
24 May – 2000 page views – Digg sent 150 page views and Stumbleupon generated 550.
OK – so that was the ‘spike’ and while StumbleUpon has generated more traffic than Digg in the last few days – Digg is still the clear winner after the first week:
- Digg – 24,410 page views (43% of all traffic to the post for this period)
- Direct Traffic – 8634 page views
- StumbleUpon – 5599 page views (9.5% of traffic to the post)
- Wykop – 4661 page views
- Delicious – 2523 page views
The Tail – Days 8-43
It’s usually at this point that a blogger would stop tracking how successful an individual post is going (in fact I tend to lose a little interest after the first 3-4 days) but out of interest today I decided to see what happened to traffic to this post since 24 May. It’s been 5 or so weeks – so how much traffic has the post generated and where did it come from?
Here’s how the traffic graph for this five week period looks (click to enlarge):
As you can see, the post has continued to generate traffic over the last 5 weeks. On it’s highest day it generated 2800 page views and it’s not dipped below 400.
I won’t go through the period day by day but can you guess where the majority of the traffic came from?
You guessed it – StumbleUpon.
Can you guess how many page views it generated?
60.05% of the traffic to the post from the 5 week period. Here’s how the top 5 sites sent page views over the last 5 weeks:
- StumbleUpon – 21,963
- Direct Traffic – 5,253
- Google – 2,530
- Digg – 1,057
- Wykop – 934
Digg traffic has dropped to next to nothing (today it generated 6 page views) – yet StumbleUpon continues to send traffic (today it’s already at 500 page views – 6 weeks after the post was written).
Add the totals for the first 7 days to the last 5 weeks and here’s how the page view count between Digg and StumbleUpon looks like this:
- StumbleUpon – 27,562
- Digg – 25,467
Now I know that the Digg traffic for this post wasn’t as big as some other stories that get to the front page of Digg and so it could be argued that this type of analysis will vary from post to post – but I guess the main point of this post is to show how the two social bookmarking sites can have remarkably different impacts. Digg’s impact upon a blog is short, sharp and can be quite devastating (at least to unprepared servers) while StumbleUpon’s impact is somewhat gentler and longer term.
The way things are trending in the case here under examination, the gap between Digg and SU will grow significantly as SU’s steady stream of traffic to the post hasn’t really shown any signs of tapering (although at some point it surely will).
One More Reason I like StumbleUpon
One last thing that strikes me about the comparison between the stats of Digg readers and StumbleUpon readers is the comparison of the ‘Bounce Rate’ figures (or the percentage of people leaving the site after viewing the particular page – ie single page readers who don’t go onto explore the site).
StumbleUpon – 52.31%
Digg – 65.73%
There’s not a lot of different between them I guess – but what interests me even more is that when I compare bounce rate between Digg and StumbleUpon across all pages on the blog – Digg users bounce on average 89.64% of the time and StumbleUpon users bounce 39.28% of the time. As a result the average time spent on the time statistic is also longer with SU readers.
An Argument for Digg?
The last thing I’ll say is that I’ve not done any research on how Digg and SU compare in the numbers of secondary links that they can bring a story. I do know that when I hit it big on Digg that this generally triggers going big on other social bookmarking sites (eg – delicious) as well as causing many blogs to link up. My suspicion is that the secondary links that come from being on StumbleUpon are fewer and further between.
I can only deduce this by seeing a lot of links made to the story in the first 7 days and few being made over the last 5 weeks. If this the case then Digg’s impact on traffic from secondary links and also SEO benefits are significant.
Digg or StumbleUpon? Or Both?
Of course – this post doesn’t really illustrate that StumbleUpon is better than Digg or that Digg is better than StumbleUpon. In fact, if anything it shows how they compliment each other quite nicely – I wouldn’t say no to being featured heavily on both!
Stumble Upon is my favorite. As you said Digg sends a good traffic for first few days. But stumble upon sends traffic for long term. The traffic from Stumble upon is also more targeted in my opinion.
It’s true that StumbleUpon drives more traffic to blog. But I didn’t know the reason behind it. Thanks for this nice post.
Stumble is far better at sending you readers more likely to actually read your post, and as you point out, is smoother and much more long lasting.
If a Stumbler with a large audience of friends picks up your post, even weeks down the line it will give another big boost, and I’m still getting Stumble traffic on posts from 6 months ago.
SU is best :-)
Well, I’m with you on the “both” part. :-)
One thing I really like about StumbleUpon is that the traffic converts well. Stumblers are visiting by topic preference, and seem more likely to become RSS subscribers and return visitors. While Diggers are active commenters, big diggs don’t have much long-term impact on my readership.
Reddit is becoming an important source of traffic for me. It performs like Digg, but a big Reddit spike is usually followed by an uptick in subscriptions. The last big Reddit blast at Lighter Footstep was on the order of 20k, which certainly rivals Digg in the server-humbling department.
I got slammed by Digg in March, making it to the top of the front page for about 12 hours. It nearly killed the server — 11,000 visitors in that 12 hours.
I’ve noticed that it never happens with StumbleUpon. The visits are spaced enough that the connections don’t run out.
My opinion of Digg is much worse than I let on. I looked at the stats for that day and the exit rate was higher than 75% for that post.
Now I have a Coral Cache redirect ready to go if I spot something like that happening again.
Nice post. I noticed the same sort of pattern. Natural traffic is good .. i just get abit annoyed when trying to advertise on SU sometimes .. they seem to have a weird policy on what sites they will accept but don’t reveal it!
I will definately check this out, sound like stumbleupon can help me get more traffic, need traffic bad, come visit me at:
http://thehub.yesdebtfree.org
appreciate any feedback you can leave me.
I’d noticed the same trend with more traffic coming from StumbleUpon. Stumblers also tend to look at more pages than Diggers. The advantage of Digg is the enormous amount of links that it brings. I guess a lot of bloggers go to Digg, just looking for something to link at, while StumbleUpon users are more casual browsers.
Blimey, i would have never of guessed this.
As you say, StumbleUpon users tend to hang around on your site a lot longer, read more posts and crucially, in my experience, convert to RSS subscribers. My limited success with Digg in the past did nothing apart from send a big burst of traffic in a short period of time and then disappear. As Chris says above, I’m now starting to see SU referrals from posts that are months old.
StumbleUpon also has more of a community feel to it than Digg. I’m more inclined to check out my friends Stumbles than I would be on Digg.
Thanks for the great analysis. I agree that Stumble Upon is really great for traffic generation. It is especially handy for new bloggers. I just started my site at the end of May and Stumble Upon is consistently sending me more than half of my traffic. The best thing about it is that it can get people to your site even if your site doesn’t break the latest news story or have a great Digg worthy post. This is a very important feature for someone who is running an educational site about a particular topic.
Digg sends cheap traffic that doesn’t click on ads or view other pages on the site. I’m a huge SU fan – superior visitor quality, no question.
I agree – I see the same trend with Reddit, Netscape, etc… all the sites that display popularity on a single page, converging all of those hits in the same space and time.
I have been involved it a lot StumbleUpon exchanges. I hope that I would get more traffic this time.
Very interesting analysis!
Is there a (legal) technique on how to succeed with Stumble Upon?
I have noticed that Digg traffic dies out rather quickly and in a two week period stops almost completely, while with the StumbleUpon traffic continues, in small dozes, even weeks from the first time you stumble.
Hits generated by stumbleupon made from person who really like the content, I myself like to browse other member pages if I can’t sleep. Finding combined picture, video and blog entries make it fun. Not only seeing title and little description. Getting mail and talk in forum also interest me. Thats my points as stumbleupon user. I do follow stumbleupon exchange at first sight to increase hits to my blog but now I feel like to make it natural. As Darren said, Stumbleupon bring a long term traffic. Dosh dosh also said that with his stats :-)
i think both digg and stumbleupon can be used in conjunction with one another.. when i took a look at my traffic stats, both of them are in my top 3 list of traffic generation strategies..
I think StumbleUpon reaches a broader audience the Digg. And as SU grows, referring traffic will continue to grow as well.
Digg users only seem to like outrageous things – i mean, look at the demographics.
On SU – you can find all sorts of people, see what they like – and they’re WAY more friendly.
I will agree about the linking though. I’m looking for ways to engage SU readers more.
Oh – and to have success on SU – your page better load fast!
I have wondered about this myself. I have noticedspikes of traffic on the days that my articles have received stumbles. I’ve never been digged (that I know of), but I have gotten considerable traffic from mybloglog and blogg-buzz. StumbleUpon traffic tops both of those, though.
Thanks for this explanation.
I can definitely attest to that. A few of my pages have been submitted to StumbleUpon in the past few days and the amount of visitors coming to my blog has gone up exponentially, as much as 3,000 more visitors a day.
I really enjoy the fact that stumble upon is sending what seems to be more consistency with traffic. Overall I would suggest continuing with both sources.
I have had great success with Stumbleupon. I find that SU readers also tend to do more constructive reviews, when they take the time, while Digg comments tend to be more reactionary and flippant :) Both have value, though (Digg definitely gets more links).
it’s really interesting why we are seeing 2 different types of visitors coming from these 2 sites commonly known as social bookmarking sites. Perhaps there is something unique about each site that individually attracts its own types of visitors. I too like Stumble MUCH MUCH more than digg.
I don’t get much traffic from SU, but hope to in the future!
My experiences have been very similar. I still get Stumbleupon traffic to posts that 2 months old and as mentioned the bounce rate is much lower. I love SU… it’s been very good to me.
awesome data and info. as a new blog Id love to get stumbled or dugg either one
Thanks for the informative article. I’ve been using Stumbleupon for a while now and enjoy it thoroughly. I think it really has a lot to offer.
Okay, Digg and Stumble Upon, the two new trendy traffic drivers, who is the next great big driver?
Nice job of digging, Darren (not to be confused with “Digging” ;-)). I really like the idea of focusing more on the bounce rate and time on site rather than just raw visitor numbers. It only makes sense that stickier visitors are going to view and interact with more ads.
I wonder where slash dot fits into the traffic picture for most bloggers? I rarely see it mentioned, but I’ll always remeber it was the source that sent me to problogger (and an AdSense sign-up) and down the whole road to blogging. Wonder who else owes their hobby/business/obsession to the /.?
Digg is all about catchy headlines. The post can (and has) been complete and utter crap. I agree with the stumble upon recommendations.
365 Days… One Goal… Can I Do It?
http://onemansgoal.com
As a new user to both sites, I find myself Stumbling more than Digging.
Now, I’m addicted StumbleUpon!
I was getting similar bounce rates and actually some lower than that (although I have nowhere near the traffic that you get. In fact, stumbleupon traffic’s bounce rate beat almost all other social networks by 10+%. Why is that?
Then I started thinking….could it be that if a person “stumbles” from your page, then google doesn’t consider it a “bounce”? Just food for thought
I’ve been Dugg once and Stumbled on multiple occasions and I have to say that the SU has served me far, far better.
After being Dugg, I saw a dramatic drop to my normal traffic, but the effect of the Stumble would last for several days, which I thought odd as I always envisioned Stumblers to be an ADD crowd.
I am a firm advocate for StumbleUpon traffic. I wrote on how SU traffic is great for new sites. Also, if you get a page dugg, it’s possible to get a mass of “thumbs up” from the SU crowd to get you onto their Buzz page.
I had a post, 101 CSS Resources to Add to Your Toolbelt of Awesomeness not get to the front page of Digg, but it was successful with SU. I consistently receive about 150 referrals a day to that post from StumbleUpon.
SU traffic doesn’t convert well and pretty much common knowledge. If I was going after conversions, I would would be as optimistic. In the case of my blog, I am looking for the eyeballs, and SU is good for driving that.
This matches my experience exactly.
Digg users arrive in a rush, leave a bunch of borderline anti-social comments (rarely reading the entire article), and then vanish into the darkness from wence they came.
SU users are targeted, interested, and (for the most part) courteous. They leave informed comments. In my experience, it’s a much nicer community — and the steady flow of traffic and conversion, at my Personal Development site, cannot be denied.
Thank you for theses insights. I definiiely will make some tests with stumpleupon in the future.
I haven’t ever received much attention from Digg, but then I’ve never really tried. Stumbleupon on the other hand has been very good to me. And as Darren describes in this post, the effect lasts a long time. I’m still seeing the residual traffic from a photography tips post that “hit the big time” after being listed here at Problogger during the last group writing project.
Now if only I can actually get my important posts into Stumbleupon in some planned and predictable way, I’m set.
So you`re on Wykop once again
Nothing strange, becouse your`s articles are realy good, like this analysis
Another big reason I like Stumbleupon visitors better is their demographics. Digg readers tend to be younger men and as such typically leave harsher comments and are more critical. Not that I’m going for soft readers that only pander to my ego but who wants to find a flood of snotty comments from a bunch of guys who think they have something to prove?
Give me Stumbleupon readers any day.
A few months back, added StumbleUpon as one of about six new add-ons while updating Firefox.. *Something* of the add-ons was a memory hog so I temporarily aborted all six with plans of revisiting once this machine was upgraded (Windows 98, 166 CPU).. Had a good “feeling” about that StumbleUpon, too.. Shoot [insert finger snap].. :grin:
This post has to be one of the best examples of the power of social media!
When we’re well connected and integrate with other sites this example really is inspiring Darren! I have commented before on your blog, and it’s feels great to visit again. Thank you for publishing such useful information…
– Brett
Darren, could you fix my url before you accept my comment please? That is, if you wish to accept.
I did not add the @ symbol. http://[email protected]
If I want to find things of interest stumble is the way to go, others have rated things as having some value, okay there is some garbage but in the main thoughtful ratings are the go.
I have used Digg in my blogs and not tried StumbleUpon for a long time. Maybe this post is a wake up call for me.
This is a nice article Darren. Just today, I got more then 20 visitors from SU. I never had good luck with Digg before. I would also prefer stumble upon over Digg.
Thanks for the article.
Darren,
Do you have any suggestion on how to get good traffic from Stumble Upon ? Any technique ?? I would appreciate if you can share that with us.
Here’s one more way to get extra traffic from Stumbleupon sends tons of Stumble users your way, http://www.15blogs.com
I will definitely check my site stat also.. I didn’t know before, how many traffic I get from SU and Digg.
I think not everyone have the same traffic style from these source, I only get a little traffic from these two site.