June 24, 2003
WatchBlog Statistics
Since launching WatchBlog a little over a week ago, I've been waching the referral logs and closely monitoring the statistics. When I built the site I knew that the idea would be well-received but I underestimated the amount of traffic certain web sites had. Using a variety of tools I watched as one site discovered it and linked to it -- which led to another site discovering it and linking to it. This cycle seemingly never stopped and truly shows the potential power of the apt-called 'blogosphere." The big jump in traffic on June 19 is because Yahoo chose it as a Yahoo Pick and then BBspot linked to it.
| Date | Number of hits | Unique IPs | Transferred |
|---|---|---|---|
| June 15, 2003 | 4608 hits | 338 | 46 MB |
| June 16, 2003 | 10584 hits | 822 | 123 MB |
| June 17, 2003 | 9388 hits | 836 | 134 MB |
| June 18, 2003 | 9574 hits | 729 | 140 MB |
| June 19, 2003 | 21602 hits | 4305 | 257 MB |
| June 20, 2003 | 25318 hits | 2294 | 289 MB |
| June 21, 2003 | 14252 hits | 1187 | 183 MB |
| June 22, 2003 | 15619 hits | 1095 | 167 MB |
| June 23, 2003 | 33318 hits | 2768 | 232 MB |
Technorati shows over 100 blogs linking to WatchBlog. Sitemeter reports over 12,000 visits and over 16,000 page views in less than eight days.
Hosting Costs: I'm approaching the traffic quota at my hosting account and realize that I'll need to move WatchBlog to a dedicated server in a few weeks and eat the excess bandwidth fees (which shouldn't be too expensive); though, if you want to donate to WatchBlog you can. I'll probably run a donation campaign sometime in the next month or two to cover my hosting overhead for WatchBlog.
I've been doing the research and am close to getting a $99/month leased server at RackShack, but am waiting to hear more about sharing half a rack at Globix with some former co-workers that has a 1MB/sec bandwidth/output cap, otherwise unlimited.
Google Adsense: Google launched their Adsense program last week and I sent in an application for WatchBlog, but for some reason it was rejected - despite the fact that WatchBlog does not meet the description of any of the sites that are prohibited. Does Google hate blogs? Even ones that are not personal but rather collaborative efforts like WatchBlog? It makes me scratch my head.
Free Advertising: On that note, I am currently offering free advertising on WatchBlog to any politically-oriented blog or Web site. Simply fill out this application to be added to the ad campaign. It's mostly so I can test out the performance of PHPadsNew but also to get more exposure in the world of political blogs.
Call For Editors: I still need several more editors for the Republicans blog and the Third Party blog. The Democrats editors are currently out-posting the other two blogs by a three-to-one margin. To apply to become a posting editor, fill out this application.
Posted by Cameron Barrett at June 24, 2003 03:10 AMIt's really quite amazing the power blogs can have, if given the opportunity to flourish. There is something undeniably natural about blogging, more so than any other medium I have encountered. As much as I can tell, blogs develop naturally. It's a lot like natural selection. The ideas that are advantageous survive, and those that are less so do not. It works a lot better than news conglomerates do, anyways.
I wish I were a republican just so I could help with that blog! I do love politics, but I'm afraid I am incurably liberal, as my mocking of Dubya would suggest. I will be following it, and the political blogging world, very closely. Kudos to offering free advertising. I'll have to mention that offer to my more politically-minded friends. ;-)
Posted by: Kerri at June 24, 2003 07:03 PM
I went in on a dedicated RackShack server w/ a friend - it's nice to have root access on your own box, and not worry about limited databases, pop accounts, or subdomains. Not to mention bandwidth — I think we have 60gb a month which is more than we'll ever use. Everything has been great so far, I would check it out...
I also think they are having a $1 setup fee special this week.
Posted by: matt at June 24, 2003 08:51 PM
Yep. Rackshack are great. I've been using them for two years without a problem. You get a lot of bandwidth for your money.
Posted by: rob manuel at June 26, 2003 05:34 PM
An anonymous friend told me to be careful with Rackshack because their policies do not allow you to take possession of a hard drive if it crashes or becomes corrupt. If you're not doing backups off-site, you're pretty much screwed.
You basically have no access to the rack, the equipment or the hard drives. It's the one major drawback if renting rackspace and hardware as opposed to buying and owning your own server hardware.
So, Rackshack does look great and you get lots of bandwidth for what seems like a low price but there is a caveat involved.
It does look like I'll be buying my own server and putting it in a rack at a facility here in Manhattan. Still working out the details.
Posted by: Cam at June 26, 2003 06:07 PM
thanks for the info
Posted by: jocbrut at June 28, 2003 04:48 AM
Re: AdSense, you could try appealing to AdSense for a rethink. Europeforvisitors.com was initially rejected, they appealed, and were accepted. Good luck!
Posted by: Allan Gardyne at June 28, 2003 09:10 AM
Google specifically states not to put
Adsense on pages with forms. Maybe that is why you were rejected?
Posted by: Debs13676 at July 23, 2003 12:35 AM
What did they say in their appeal?
Posted by: Paul Terry Walhus at July 27, 2003 03:04 PM
Cam, if you're in Manhattan, look in to http://datapipe.com . . . I have a 2U rackmounted box that I built running there for about $200 a month and it's got 6 120 gb hard drives.
It's a very good deal.
Posted by: Paul Terry Walhus at July 27, 2003 03:06 PM
