After writing an article about finding traffic numbers for websites yesterday, I thought it was a bit weird seeing big blogs belonging to Gawker Media with their stats public like that. So, I dugg a little deeper, and found out that all their blogs have little Sitemeter icons in the footer, which link directly to their stats page, which is public for all their blogs.
I took the data from the last 7 days, visits and page views. The rest at the “traffic stats” links. The estimated revenues of the Gawker blogs are based on these rate of Gawker Media, which shows that each 1000 page views brings them $30. I just went from there, but obviously traffic varies in a year, and some campaigns might get rebates, so these numbers can be considered guesses.
Later Edit: the numbers below don’t take into account ad inventory that isn’t sold (some say only 10-30% is sold), rebates or commissions.
1. Gizmodo - traffic stats
8,923,667 visits - 10,368,591 page views
$311,040 per week or $16.17 million per year
2. Kotaku - traffic stats
4,459,733 visits - 5,097,512 page views
$152,910 per week or $7.95 million per year
3. Lifehacker - traffic stats
3,234,943 visits - 3,994,625 page views
$119,820 per week or $6.23 million per year
4. Fleshbot (NSFW) - traffic stats
649,998 visits - 2,955,210 page views
$88,650 per week or $4.6 million per year
5. Gawker - traffic stats
2,033,382 visits - 2,704,653 page views
$81,120 per week or $4.21 million per year
6. Deadspin - traffic stats
1,356,520 visits - 1,830,838 page views
$54,900 per week or $2.85 million per year
7. Consumerist - traffic stats
1,299,942 visits - 1,683,046 page views
$50,490 per week or $2.62 million per year
8. Jalopnik - traffic stats
701,720 visits - 1,361,124 page views
$40,830 per week or $2.12 million per year
9. Jezebel - traffic stats
801,911 visits - 1,292,310 page views
$38,760 per week or $2.01 million per year
10. Defamer - traffic stats
706,954 visits - 974,329 page views
$29,220 per week or $1.51 million per year
11. Wonkette - traffic stats
577,865 visits - 830,408 page views
$24,900 per week or $1.29 million per year
12. Valleywag - traffic stats
246,650 visits - 416,755 page views
$12,480 per week or $0.64 million per year
13. Gridskipper - traffic stats
130,143 visits - ="#0000ff">245,184 page views
$7,350 per week or $0.38 million per year
14. Idolator - traffic stats
114,778 visits - 211,459 page views
$6,330 per week or $0.32 million per year
Totals for Gawker Media from the 14 blogs they own, based on 7 days of traffic:
Visits/week: 25,238,206
Page Views/week: 33,966,044
Revenues/week: ~$1 million per week
Revenues/year: ~$52 million per year
PS: how well does Sitemeter collect traffic data anyway? Anyone has any experience with them?
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Steve Hall responded on 13 Aug 2007 at 9:18 pm #
Unfortunately, that’s assuming every ad impression on every page is sold and that it’s sold at rate card rates. Two things that, in online publishing, never ever happen.
Shylock responded on 13 Aug 2007 at 9:32 pm #
Steve, true, I specified that this doesn’t take into account rebates. But, in theory, summer months should be slower then the rest of the year, so their usual traffic might be bigger then seen here. However, it’s also true that selling 33 million pageviews per week might be a bit hard. Don’t remember visiting Valleywag and not seeing ads there though (and I am subscribed to that lovely bunch).
Web Publisher responded on 13 Aug 2007 at 11:25 pm #
You are a complete idiot if you think that the sell-through rate on that network is higher than 10-30%. Your numbers are completely worthless. You clearly know nothing about how the online business model works in the real world.
How many house ads do you see on those blogs? Run your numbers again, factoring in how many of the ads that appear actually appear to be from paying customers, as a percentage of all ads. Rebates are barely an issue — it’s unsold inventory! I’m telling you, they probably sell 10-30%, meaning the real revenue is probably 10-30% of your estimate.
Shylock responded on 13 Aug 2007 at 11:42 pm #
Ahh, a troll. I’ve heard about you. Welcome to my blog!
And yeah, I’m looking at Gawker blogs right now and seeing all ads sold out. Those that show up for me anyway. Chill dude. “Estimated” and “guesses”, both words show up in my article before I even start quoting numbers.
And yeah, I have no experience when it comes to selling inventories of 34 million page views per week. So sue me.
But, just because “you’re telling me”, doesn’t mean I’m convinced. If they would sell only 10-30% of their inventory then they would use a CPC or CPM program to cover their extra page views. I doubt they would just leave 70% of their page views without ads on them. So, I’m sure they’re using other programs for unsold inventory. Those programs are still likely to make money.
Shylock responded on 14 Aug 2007 at 12:41 am #
And another thing. It would be pretty stupid to sell those 4 ads at $30 if they sold only 10-30% of their inventory. $10-15 would make them more money probably. I’m pretty sure Nick Denton is a smart guy and sells at the optimum price for his blogs.
raincoaster responded on 14 Aug 2007 at 4:39 am #
FYI sitemeter stats are pretty good. It would be to their advantage to display inflated stats, but sitemeter actually gives me lower numbers than the Wordpress.com stats program. No idea how it compares to Google Analytics, though.
If You’re Still Not Convinced There’s Money In Blogs…. >> Viya Unlimited, Inc. responded on 14 Aug 2007 at 4:16 pm #
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Nick Denton responded on 15 Aug 2007 at 4:33 pm #
Shylock, I have to agree with “web publisher” — above. (Incidentally, I think he or she counts as a critic, rather than a troll.) It’s absurd to assume that any site on the web is sold out. Also, that network ads, running in remnant inventory, provide any support to your revenue number.
Network ads tend to be cheap and tacky — which is why we rarely run them in remnant. You’ll see house and trade ads, and campaigns by blue-chip brands, but no network, right now. Easily verified.
Also, our traffic numbers are public, as you have discovered. If you look at the month-by-month Sitemeter stats, you’ll see that there is no summer dip. Therefore you can’t assume that our underlying traffic level is higher than 150m a month.
In short: your methodology is seriously flawed.
Shylock responded on 15 Aug 2007 at 4:53 pm #
Hi Nick, and thanks for clarifying. I had a few questions that needed answers before I edited the article (though I’ll leave most of it as it is so people see what all the fuss was about).
My big problem was the fact that people said “unused ad inventory”. Couldn’t really grasp the concept of letting 10 million page views or more go to waste without having some money making ads on them. The fact that they might be tacky and some didn’t want to display them didn’t really cross my mind.
I still don’t get however the $30 price for the 4 ads. If the number quoted by web publisher (a troll since he doesn’t know how to behave in a comment) of 10-30% is true, then maybe dropping the price to $10 would sell the entire inventory and make more money?
Still talking like a newbie perhaps, just trying to understand the thinking behind the method.
Good luck growing Gawker and I hope you didn’t get too many requests for wage raises
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