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Hacker News now generates 10x the traffic of TechMeme

21 points by jordhy 15y ago

dcurtis 15y ago
I know from multiple experiences that this graphic is misleading. Techmeme sometimes sends more traffic than HN; it depends entirely on the slant of the story and on its positions on TM and HN.
- jasonmcalacanis 15y ago
  It was actually an Apple story, so it's really much, much more a TM story than a HN story. also, the last time I had a story on both HN was like 3x TM, so I think that scale is huge. Compete.com is probably off in terms of under reporting--but under reporting equally for both. http://siteanalytics.compete.com/techmeme.com/ http://siteanalytics.compete.com/techmeme.com/ http://siteanalytics.compete.com/news.ycombinator.com/ http://siteanalytics.compete.com/news.ycombinator.com/
taylorbuley 15y ago
10x is a big claim for a sample size of 1.
cantbecool 15y ago
No way this article is correct. I dispise users discussing traffic as a goal on most sites, but at hacker news is radically different it's about intelligent discourse and enlightenment. I can assure you PG wouldn't lose any sleep at night if he knew other sites were visited more than HN. Look at the URL. One is a subdomain and the other is a straight .com. Plus who believes that stat reporting nonsense anyway. The only true way to tell is opening up Google Analytics for both domains and then comparing.
untog 15y ago
Three observations: this is just one dataset. You can't assume that HN generates more traffic based on this story and this one alone. They appear to have been posted at different times of day- this can have a huge impact. Also, the chart cuts off before the TechMeme traffic dies off- it already seems to have a significantly longer tail than HN traffic. For what it's worth, I did a comparison of HN vs. Reddit traffic to my blog: http://blog.untogether.co.uk/post/17661390124/fun-with-analytics-pitting-hacker-news-and http://blog.untogether.co.uk/post/17661390124/fun-with-analy... and Reddit absolutely smoked HN. Not that that's too surprising.
benologist 15y ago
Which is why rags like The Verge are rewriting articles like: http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/16/2952030/user-interface-designers-silicon-valley-reuters http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/16/2952030/user-interface-des... and sites like BGR, MacObserver, ExtremeTech, ITWorld, Bostinno and probably plenty of others maintain a presence here dumping their links.
tankenmate 15y ago
I'm just wondering about selection bias, maybe some people read both HN and TM, and didn't re-visit because they had already read about it on HN. Have you got any recent examples where the story first appeared on TM and then on HN?

21 points by jordhy 15y ago

I know from multiple experiences that this graphic is misleading. Techmeme sometimes sends more traffic than HN; it depends entirely on the slant of the story and on its positions on TM and HN.

jasonmcalacanis 15y ago
It was actually an Apple story, so it's really much, much more a TM story than a HN story. also, the last time I had a story on both HN was like 3x TM, so I think that scale is huge. Compete.com is probably off in terms of under reporting--but under reporting equally for both. http://siteanalytics.compete.com/techmeme.com/ http://siteanalytics.compete.com/techmeme.com/ http://siteanalytics.compete.com/news.ycombinator.com/ http://siteanalytics.compete.com/news.ycombinator.com/

taylorbuley 15y ago

10x is a big claim for a sample size of 1.

cantbecool 15y ago

No way this article is correct. I dispise users discussing traffic as a goal on most sites, but at hacker news is radically different it's about intelligent discourse and enlightenment. I can assure you PG wouldn't lose any sleep at night if he knew other sites were visited more than HN. Look at the URL. One is a subdomain and the other is a straight .com. Plus who believes that stat reporting nonsense anyway. The only true way to tell is opening up Google Analytics for both domains and then comparing.

untog 15y ago

Three observations: this is just one dataset. You can't assume that HN generates more traffic based on this story and this one alone. They appear to have been posted at different times of day- this can have a huge impact. Also, the chart cuts off before the TechMeme traffic dies off- it already seems to have a significantly longer tail than HN traffic. For what it's worth, I did a comparison of HN vs. Reddit traffic to my blog: http://blog.untogether.co.uk/post/17661390124/fun-with-analytics-pitting-hacker-news-and http://blog.untogether.co.uk/post/17661390124/fun-with-analy... and Reddit absolutely smoked HN. Not that that's too surprising.

benologist 15y ago

Which is why rags like The Verge are rewriting articles like: http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/16/2952030/user-interface-designers-silicon-valley-reuters http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/16/2952030/user-interface-des... and sites like BGR, MacObserver, ExtremeTech, ITWorld, Bostinno and probably plenty of others maintain a presence here dumping their links.

tankenmate 15y ago

I'm just wondering about selection bias, maybe some people read both HN and TM, and didn't re-visit because they had already read about it on HN. Have you got any recent examples where the story first appeared on TM and then on HN?