MoneySavingExpert.com now UK's number 2 overall Money site Blog Discussion 18 October 2005 at 1:35PM in Site feedback 6 replies 1.6K views

Former_MSE_Andrea

Click reply to discuss Martin's latest blog here

dell_2

If I've read the graphs correctly...

Looks as if site traffic drops towards the end of the month - I was expecting it to be the other way round as people look for ways to cut back.

Of course it could be the "direct debit rush" at the begining of the month that gets peoples attention

sra

But I wonder about alexa statistics.
Who here has their toolbar?

Maybe the smarter surfers - who don't have alexa because they have adware removers and/or have non-IE browsers - come here.

This site may be number 1 :j

Vic_980

Difficult to say. As I understand it, doesn't the Alexa ranking depend on who uses the toolbar?

I think the site's success is primarily to do with the huge chat forum and the money tips email, than the content of the main site. Not to take anything away of course as Martin's articles are very interesting and useful.

It would be interesting if the figures were broken down in a bit more detail. I reckon visitors to the Grabbit board would make up substantial proportion of the site's traffic.

Any thoughts?

MSE_Martin

Hi Vic

Actually its the other way round. The biggest driver of traffic by far is the Money Tips E-mail - hugely more than anything else. And whatever the big things that weeks are is where the big traffic goes.

Now if we ignore the email then it gets interesting.

As you'll see from Alexa the stats show traffic at 70% to the forum and 30% to the main site - yet this is very misleading for a number or reasons.

This is includes a substantial weighting for page views. Of course there are many times more page views in the forum, for two reasons. A. because with an article you read it and that's it, whereas in the forum you interact and repeatedly read the same page and B. because the regulars reside in the forum and many will view hundreds of apges a day.

Overall the stats are actually quite intereting there are roughly 3 times as many pages viewed in the forums than on the main site, yet roughly 4 times as many people read the main site as the forums - the main site has a much bigger usership.

I understand why it's perceived to be the other way round though - of course the users of the main site aren't visible....

martin

Vic_980

Thanks for this Martin - very interesting reading. Just shows that stats can sometimes be misleading unless looked at in more detail.

Congratulations on the ranking increase - hopefully it will continue!

mountainofdebt

Well I came across this site after catching Martin on radio 4.

After visiting it a number of times, I mentioned to a friend of mine as I was so impressed with the wealth of information.

When out with other people, the subject of money got brought up and my friend, without any prompting, recommended this site.

Now I don't know about you but I strongly believe in the domino effect.....