ProBlogger, ShoeMoney and John Chow: ProBlogger users more loyal?
Photo by Jake Levin
I’m starting to think that the twenty-first century textbooks are not going to mention Adam Smith or Henry Ford. Instead, they will teach our kids about web entrepreneurs.
Anyway, do you recognize those three names? I’ve been reading lots of competition-related articles about ShoeMoney vs. John Chow. However, there’s something interesting with those three websites (besides being three of the biggest Make Money Online blogs): all three have a very similar Alexa Rank. Two of them also have a very similar RSS Feed Reader Subscription count (based on FeedBurner’s chicklet), but what about the third one?
Why is Subscription count important? Read my previous post and you’ll know why. Anyway, simply put, it measures the amount of users who see each websites’ RSS daily. Anyway, let’s find out what Google PageRank, Alexa Traffic Rank, and FeedBurner RSS Readers have to say:
ShoeMoney vs. John Chow
These two websites are very similar in terms of statistics: ShoeMoney has an Alexa Rank of 3′632, while John Chow has a Alexa Rank of 3′980, about 10% less than ShoeMoney. If we take a look at their PageRank, ShoeMoney takes the lead with a 6 PR, while John Chow is behind with 4 PR. Now, if we take a look at their FeedBurner readers, ShoeMoney has ~14′500 readers, while John Chow has ~15′000. Surprisingly enough, those two are quite similar when we compare their Alexa and FeedBurner ranks.
What about ProBlogger?
Problogger shows some similar patterns: It has a PageRank 6, and an Alexa Rank of 3′211. If we compare them with the other two websites, ProBlogger’s Alexa Rank is also around the 3′000 rank. I’m tempted to say that the three websites are competing for number one. But what happens when we check at ProBlogger’s RSS FeedBurner users? ProBlogger has ~40′500 readers. That’s 25′000 readers, or 60% more than the other two websites. Maybe ProBlogger’s users are more loyal and pretend to stay there for a good time. But wait, it’s a little early to draw conclusions. Maybe the Alexa Rank is biased, or is it not…
Alexa Rank may be accurate this time
John Chow’s post about Why Alexa is Worthless is a must read. However, as much as I understand his point of view, I’m tempted to say that Alexa Rank is not worthless this time. Why is that? Well, if you think about it, as John Chow said, Alexa may be horribly biased towards a particular niche. The problem this time is that all the three blogs belong to the same category, and personally I don’t think one or the other blog particularly draws the attention of Alexa users. If this were the case, then definitely ProBlogger’s users are more loyal or well, at least it has more loyal users.
So, why would this trend exist? I’m not sure, though I’m actually only subscribed to ProBlogger. I do frequently read articles on the other two blogs —however, there is this something that keeps me from subscribing. What do you think? Are you a subscriptor of any of these websites and why?
Technorati Tags: Websoda Analysis, PageRank, FeedBurner, RSS reader, ProBlogger, Shoe Money, John Chow
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February 5th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
I am definitely more loyal to problogger. Darren is a lot less cocky and gives realistic advice for bloggers. Chow seems to just be bragging about how cool he is and how everyone listens to him. Darren (problogger) Makes a lot of money but he doesn’t sell himself to every company wiling to shell out the cash. He writes honest reviews of products, many of them unpaid.
February 5th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
That’s true, Darren keeps up with a constant (and humble) quality content since quite a while ago, and he’s definitely staying for the years to come. We’ll have to let the future decide, but I already have my eyes pointed somewhere
February 6th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
I prefer ShoeMoney, but read all 3 daily. The pagerank differs because Google slapped Chow with a penalty.
RSS is the most meaningless stat, just because someone signed up during a contest does not mean they actually read their feed. Like me, they probably click “mark all as read” when they bother at all. What does count? Email subscriptions. I read every one of ShoeMoney’s posts because I’m on his mailing list.
February 6th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
True, it would be great to know their email subscriptions (maybe it’s possible to know it on their advertisement page, I’ll go check out). Yeah, I noticed they penalized Chow, that’s why I didn’t discuss too much about their PageRank.
Maybe what you say about RSS is true, however, the difference between ~15K readers and 40K is just too big, I don’t think one contest could actually bring in so many subscribers. Also, there have been quite a few “subscribe to my email” contests too. I guess one way or another, there’s always a way to trick the system.
There are also good blogs with thousands of subscribers where they have never ran any contest before, and if I were to advertise somewhere, I’d definitely check their RSS readers and if they ran a contest before (personally I don’t like those contests).
May 19th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
Assuming either the Left Wing or the Right Wing gained control of the country, it would probably fly around in circles.