The Technorati Favorites Experiment: A Final Traffic Report and Analysis

I started Dosh Dosh’s Technorati Favorites experiment on the 9th of April to measure the value of the Technorati Top 100 Most Favorited list in terms of traffic.

The experiment is now over a month old and I’ve finally decided it was the right time to draft up a statistical report on the nature and amount of visitor traffic from Technorati.

This detailed report was compiled using the Google Analytics stats package and its verity is demonstrated through screenshots of the specific Technorati referral traffic channels.

I have not read any other detailed statistical reports on Technorati Most Favorited list and I do think that this presents important information which allows you to determine if it is worth your time to actively encourage favoriting from your readers or other sources.

Setting a Timeframe for the Traffic Report

Dosh Dosh broke into the Technorati Top 100 Most Favorited on the 10th of April, one day after initiating the experiment. This report subsequently dates from the 10th of April to the 10th of May, which is 30 days or one month.

I’ve also prepared traffic statistics for the period of a month prior to the Favorites experiment. This runs from 9th March to the 9th of April and allows us to compare the growth in traffic over a similar period of 30 days.

Five Favorites-based Technorati Referral Traffic Channels

Let’s start by taking a look at the Technorati Top 100 Most Favorited. Here is a screenshot of Dosh Dosh’s blog profile in the Top 100 list. Do pay close attention to red arrows that point to four different spots.

These are currently the four entry points for every blog listed on the Technorati Top 100 Most Favorited and each of them lead to individual pages with a direct link to your blog.

Here are the four main traffic channels:

1. Technorati Blog Profile. The blog title on Dosh Dosh’s profile in the Top 100 page links to the actual blog profile page, which itself contains a direct link to the blog homepage.




2. Technorati Top 100 Most Favorited Page . The blog url is displayed beneath one’s Technorati username. This points to the blog homepage as well.




3. Technorati User Profile Page. This is linked to one’s username on the Top 100 list and like the Blog Profile page, the user profile page has a link which points directly to your homepage.




4. Technorati Favorited by Page. Technorati has recently renamed this page by using the word ‘fans’ to refer to users who favorited your blog. The blog profile on the Top 100 page links to the ‘fans’ page, which also links directly to your homepage.
   
   

Additional/Indirect Traffic Sources from Technorati Favorites

• Technorati Homepage. Users who have favorited your blog will see your new blog posts showing up in the Technorati homepage whenever they are logged in.




• Blogs displaying RSS favorite feeds. There are some blogs who put up the Technorati favorites widget or manually display blog posts pulled from the feeds of their Technorati favorites.

  There are very few blogs out there which actually utilize this setup so the traffic would be quite minimal. It is also quite difficult to measure the amount of traffic and so I’ve left out this referral source in the report.

Referral Traffic from Technorati: Pre-Experiment Statistics

I’ve decided to include traffic stats from Technorati for the period of a month before the experiment begun. This allows us to compare it with visitor statistics after Dosh Dosh was subsequently included in the Top 100 Most Favorited page.

Having gone through the statistics from Google Analytics, I’ve discovered that not a single visitor came via the ‘Favorited by‘ Page and Technorati homepage before the experiment begun. Naturally, no visitors came from the Top 100 list as well.

The following statistics fall within 30 days, from March 9th to April 9th 2007.

Dosh Dosh’s Blog Profile Page

Technorati Home Page

User Profile Page

Technorati Referral Traffic: Visitor Stats after Entering in the Top 100 Most Favorited

Here is a collection of the screenshots which shows the amount of traffic Technorati sent to Dosh Dosh after it was listed as a Top 100 Most Favorited blog.

The following stats range from the period of 30 days from April 10 to May 10th 2007. Four of the traffic channels I’ve listed above are included and the total amount of visitors are highlighted in yellow.

There are two permalink urls for the blog profile page because Technorati seems to have made some new changes during their site redesign a few weeks ago.

It is interesting to note that I have not seen any traffic at all from the ‘Fans’ page, even though Dosh Dosh has over 800 users favoriting it.

Technorati Home Page

Dosh Dosh’s Blog Profile Page

Technorati Top 100 Most Favorited Page

User Profile Page

Statistical Summary and Comparison

In the month preceding the experiment, I’ve received 14 visitors from Dosh Dosh’s blog and user profile pages. In comparison, when Dosh Dosh was listed within the Technorati Top 100, I’ve received 740 visitors in total from blog and user profile pages as well as the Technorati homepage and Most Favorited List.

This means that I’ve gotten around 25 unique visitors a day for a month. That’s not a lot of traffic at all but still decent, especially if your blog is new or needs the exposure.

Traffic Analysis: What are Visitors from Technorati like?

Let’s take a close look at what the traffic statistics say about Technorati users coming to Dosh Dosh.

Google Analytic uses a term called the Bounce Rate, which is the simply “the percentage of single-page visits (i.e. visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page).”

For example, a bounce rate of 70% would mean that 70% of the visitors simply visited the page they landed on and left without visiting any other pages on your site.

On average, visitors from Technorati have a bounce rate of 43%, which means the 43% of them left after viewing just one page on Dosh Dosh. 57% of them viewed more than one page.

Here are some statistics for the Top 100 Most Favorited page:

• Total number of visitors: 145 in 30 days
• Average page visit: 2.43
• New Visitors: 73.10%
• Bounce Rate: 51.03%
• Average Time on Site: 4.46

Judging from the stats, these visitors are rather ideal because of several reasons:

• They are mostly new visitors, which are the people that you want to attract when you want to build a larger reader base.




• Almost half of them view more than one page, which means they do seem to have some interest about Dosh Dosh.

Another benefit of getting many favorites is that you’ll get traffic from the Technorati Homepage without doing anything at all.

You’ll simply need to publish your blog post as usual and it’ll show up on the homepage for the users who have favorited your blog.

Here are some stats on the Technorati Homepage visitors.

• Total number of visitors: 233 in 30 days
• Average time spent on Site: 4 minutes
• Average page views: 2.03 pages
• Average time on site: 4 minutes
• New Visitors: 18.88%
• Bounce rate: 52.79%

Most of the visitors from the Technorati homepage are not new to Dosh Dosh, which means that they are regular readers who occasionally keep up with new material through Technorati itself.

Some of them might be already subscribed to Dosh Dosh’s blog feed but I like the idea that out of over 800 users, there will be a handful who will be naturally directed to my site through the Favorites feature.

Summary and Conclusion

The traffic statistics might be a little skewed by the fact that the Technorati Favorite experiment created a lot of activity around Dosh Dosh’s blog profile. I think the statistics for this month (May to June) will probably give a clearer indication of Technorati’s long term traffic value.

I’m sure the main question on everyone’s mind is this: Was it worth all the time and effort to get into the Technorati Top 100 Most Favorited list?

The visitor traffic is not fantastic but the traffic generating process is largely passive. I didn’t do much at all and I particular like the fact that over 200 visitors came from the Technorati homepage, which means that some readers do follow their favorites through Technorati.

I do imagine that traffic from the homepage will be the only consistent source in the long run. Want my advice? I don’t think encouraging your readers to favorite your blog or participating in favorite exchanges is entirely a waste of time.

You’ll just need to be very aware of the traffic you will actually get in return for your efforts. If you don’t mind the paltry amount of daily visitors, you can still develop Technorati as yet another source of defensive traffic.

After analyzing the results from this experiment, I primarily view the favorites feature as a method for you to develop more retention of your blog brand and content.

Future Group Experiments?

I’ve kept my end of my bargain by providing a detailed traffic analysis for the Top 100 Technorati Favorites list and I’ll like to say that I’ve really enjoyed hosting the Technorati Favorite experiment/exchanges on Dosh Dosh.

Once again, my heartfelt thanks to everyone who participated in the Technorati Favorites experiment. Everyone’s enthusiasm for the project has been infectious and very motivating.

I’m looking forward to more interactive group experiments because I’m always interested in discovering new ways to help small blogs get the exposure and traffic they deserve.

If you know of any social website or network you would like me to examine in detail, or have a brilliant idea for another group experiment, please leave your suggestions in the comments.