When I was a member in the Thorn Tree travel forum of Lonely Planet website, everyday the Moderator of that forum read all the posts and selected some good ones as "threads of the day". When I first joined this website, I wondered why some entries which were not very impressive but still appeared on the front page. Later I knew that was based on the recommendations by other bloggers. Since the number of new entries is huge and you, the Moderators, cannot read all of them, perhaps there should be a function for people to vote the good articles or something like that. Just my idea.
Reply to this You are welcome to recommend good threads to be highlighted. Post them here and then I can branch this thread and make a thread especially for members to recommend discussions to be Highlighted.
Reply to this Mel,
90,000 hit a day on the front page, and if you look at it, most of the 8 blogs entries on the front page never hit more than 250 entries while on the front page...This means out of 90,000 who hit the first page, less than 2%!c(MISSING)ontinue by clicking on one of the entry...very interesting.
I had a nice discussion with Ali about it back in June. Look at the forums, at the end of the day, there are less than 20 regular contributors to answer questions coming around. Compare to the amount of travelbloggers, this is really limited.
For me the reson is simple. Most people see the site as the possibility to put there journal online, and get read by friends, and it stop there for most I've got the feeling. This is fine with me, this means travelblog answer a need for thousands of people, and this is great by itself.
At the end of the day, some want to do everything they can to be read more...but maybe before trying to attract interest on ourslef, it would be nicer to take an interest in others.
For my part, my blog is just my journal...I do write it mainly for my children as a souvenir for them in the future. Second is for my friends to enjoy our little fun...and third, between people who travel a lot, it's to share info about places that could be useful for others. I don't care much about my writting, I've got no inspiration for fame, neither do I care much about my pics...it's just about sharing...and finding great info also...our next week0end has been inspired by an entry from Sophie and Dale, we won't do exactly the same, but I need to thank them for the inspiration,
Tigers eye on the River Kwai...
Peter
Reply to this Oh those halcyon days, when it was just me Ali and Jabe on the front page; If I'd gotten two 'hits' that week I knew they'd both read my blog:-)
To 90,000 hits on the front page, and as PA Leslie states, entries on the front page usually never hit more than 250! On average, I'd say my blogs received more 'hits' whilst on the front page about 3/4 years ago, than say if I were to post one today, even taking into account the acquisition of 'fans' along the way.
I would offer that even though travelblog receives more and more visitors every day (growing impressively over the years) a smaller percentage of those visitors actually read other peoples blogs. So perhaps travelblog is evolving from a site where people come to read blogs, to one where people visit in order to post blogs to be read by their family and friends.
Has anyone else developed a similar hypothesis based on any quantifiable evidence?
Some other interesting travelblog statistics are that the average page views per user are 2.5, and the average time spent on the site is 1.6 minutes.
Reply to this If this can be of some interest for the discussion, I am a new member, but I have been coming here for a while, reading blogs of people I don't even know!
One of my friends had a blog when he went to Japan a few years ago, but he rarely posted so I searched other blogs to read instead.
Once I discover a new blog that I find interesting, I read it chronologically from beginning to end, and then I'm almost as sad as them when their adventure comes to an end and they go back to "regular" life. When some bloggers go on a RTW trip, reading everything in their blog can be quite time-consuming, so I try to read just one blog from start to finish, then on with another.
One function that would be nice would be for a search by blog language. I would be interested to read blogs in French as it is my first language, but I really found only one really interesting and lasting long enough for it to have more than just 10 blog entries (and no, it wasn't my friend's blog!)
Reply to this Hi Jason,
100% agree with you. To be honest, I did not visit the first page for at least 6 months after I joined. I may even have ended on the first page without being aware of it, and it does not change my life.
I think a lot of the people on travelblog are simply not aware of what the site can bring them.
-for me travelblog has become a lot more useful than any single lonely planet. You get unbiais comments onplaces by people with different views and budgets. The more people blog on a place, the more you need to do your homework, but the more you'll find proper info...and way better quality than tripadvisor.
-what we need also is to boost presence on the forums. I'm aware that is is time consuming to spend time to answer and help complete strangers on their travel plans. A lot of the comments on forums are more "physophical" than simple answer a basic question with technical info. You nearly never see a blogger putting a simple reply saying...hi, you may be interested to look at this entry to have an answer to your question.
-I'm fine with people just here to post their holidays without interacting. The more traffic, the more potential revenues for Ali and the blogs...and this is a good point as Ali is investing a lot in it to improve the site...which means a lot of people help all of us for a better travelblog.
I'm sorry to say, but I find this all point of "how to increase my hits" a little selfcentric. This is for people to give themself a sens of "social existence"...same crap as on facebook....people with hundreds of friends, and no life! What's the pointof having these thousand friends and people reading you if you spend most of your friday evening alone at home in front of your computer.
I went to a highschool which had a very simple moto....LIFE IS LIKE A SPANISH HOSTEL, YOU TAKE OUT OF IT WHAT YOU BRING IN IT. It was in french, so sorry for the poor quality translation. But the point is,it's not about how we can make our own blog more popular, it's how we can have people interact more...giving before receiving...
Reply to this I set up the travel blog for my daughter....to share with family and friends and for her to one day continue on her own. I love seeing other peoples travel photos and experiences, as well, and it has sparked my interest to go to some places that I have not though of going.
I must say that the most rewarding thing from this website came from a non member who I have never met who recently sent me the message below. To me this was more important than how many hits I get. Thanks to Ali (and everyone/anyone else who helped) for setting up this website that has enabled me to have something so special for my daughter and at the same time having a positive impact in the lives of others.
I think I may have written to you last year prior to our trip to Vietnam. I just wanted to say how much I enjoy looking over your blog. Seeing how you two travel was the inspiration for us to go on our first backpacking trip together (and the reason why we thought to bring life vests to Halong Bay!). We are now counting down the days til our second trip as a family, 6 weeks in Cambodia and Laos. So I just wanted to say thanks for sharing your story, it was a big part in helping us realise we too could travel and have adventure in our lives with our kids, and we are so happy and fulfilled because of it. Some day we hope to have experienced as many exciting places as you guys have (planning 12 month RTW in 4 years instead of buying a house!). Thanks, enjoy your travels and hope your adventures continue to inspire people like us! Reply to this One function that would be nice would be for a search by blog language. I would be interested to read blogs in French as it is my first language,
There is eventually going to be a section of TravelBlog dedicated to blogs in languages other than English. 😊
Reply to this Hello Sofia 😊
Would you mind getting the permission of the people who send private messages, before posting the contents on the forums. In this particular case it probalby wont cause problems, but potentially posting messages sent privately can cause problems.
Mel
Reply to this Just want to correct the 90,000 figure - it's 90,000 - 100,000 unique visitors across the
whole site daily on average (it's growing slowly).
The front page gets about 5,000 daily unique visitors - being on the front page will account for roughly 250 extra hits (depending on how busy that page is)
The algorithm that determines the front page blogs is pretty simple - it counts the recommendations for the bloggers, checks that there are 600 words and some photos uploaded within 10 days of publishing.
@YUL-Girl - I will put the language search on the list of nice ideas. Thanks.
Reply to this Was there any reason why the minimum for Front Page blogs is now set at 300 or 400 , rather than 600 words?
I dont know, because it was Ali who changed it. I presume it was because the shorter blogs looked good.
I am going to move this post to the Front Page thread, in case Ali has any comment to make about it.
Reply to this I always felt "deprived" when reading some good blogs that end abruptly! 😉
....but 300 words is just too short!
As long as the good 300 word blogs are followed by more blogs or at least promises of, I dont mind at all. 😊
Reply to this The front page gets about 5,000 daily unique visitors
So, roughly 20%!o(MISSING)f those who hit the Front Page visit a blog there.
The challange then would be to make the blog title and photos enticing enough to make all 5,000 visitors of the Front Page visit your blog. 😉
Reply to this I do visit the Front Page regularly, but I have got to admit that I am almost always led to read a particular blog through the Travel Photos. I don't know about the rest, but a good picture grabs me more than a title. That way, i am not limited to the "new blogs" featured on the front page , but also to older ones which may have gone unnoticed in the past.
Reply to this Are you sure it takes 600 words to get on the front page? There are two blogs there today with less...
J.
Reply to this It used to take 600 words, but has been changed. I am not sure what the current number of required words is.
Reply to this Im really late to this discussion, but to pick on some points made in posts 24 and 26 (Jason and PA) - Ive been on the front page since 2006, and agree that being on there now gathers less hits than back in those days. One of the main reasons is with more highlighted bloggers, the chances of staying on the front page for longer is reduced - one time I was even bumped off the front page within half a day! There was one exception to this and that was my blog on the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. If I remember correctly, it had over 500 hits by the time it fell off the front page 48 hours later - and this can be attributed to the wide-scale interest in that event.
I was a member for a while before contributing to the forums, but have slowly increased over time. One of the reasons for my forum and moderator contributions is that this site bring me so many benefits, that it felt incumbent upon me to give something in return. Its reached such a stage that I spend more time undertaking moderator duties and posting in the forums then I do writing and organising my own blogs - but that sits comfortably with me as it brings a lot of satisfaction and enjoyment.
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