After reading an outstanding article about a Digg vs. Stumbled Upon experiment from Social News Watch, I had to try it myself and see what kind of results I would get. It is not my intention to steal any thunder from this article, but after trying it I wanted to share my results with you. I highly recommend reading Social News Watch.
Overview
- Eazy Cheezy was established on September 24, 2008
- Prior to my experiment, traffic = 62 visitors, 80 visits & 190 page views per day.
- I had logins for both Stumbled Upon and Digg, but wasn’t active in their communities.
- Experiment start date = October 12, 2008.
- Google Analytics used for statistics.
Actions I Took
1. Added large group of friends to build Digg network & have a total of 274 Digg
“Friends.”
2. Found myself stuck in the “Digg Mine and I’ll Digg Yours” system
3. Shouted out stuff I wanted Diggs for.
1. Completed my profile & uploaded a picture.
2. Searched & added a few friends with similiar interests.
3. Joined a few of the Groups I had interest in.
4. Reviewed friends profiles & stumbled the pages of theirs I liked.
5. Stumbled several other pages, only giving thumbs up & reviews for those I liked.
6. Stumbled a few articles to share with the community.
7. I rarely send articles to anyone’s inbox in Stumbled Upon.
Results
Day 1 – Oct 12, 2008
Traffic increased from 80 visits to 465
Overall – 433 visitors, 465 visits, 801 page views
- Stumbled Upon- 352 visits(75%)
- Digg – 48 visits (10%)
- Direct – 37 visits (8%)
Day 2 – Oct 13, 2008
Traffic jumps from 465 visits to 18,904
Overall – 20,322 visitors, 21,166 visits, 32,002 page views
- Stumbled – 18,904 visits (89%)
- Direct – 2,100 visits (10%)
- Digg – 27 visits (.13%)
Day 3 – Oct 14, 2008
Traffic stays consistent from previous day & Delicious comes out of nowhere
Overall - 17,660 visitors, 18,529 visits, 29,098 page views
- Stumbled – 15,992 visits (86%)
- Direct – 2,231 visits (12%)
- Delicious – 100 visits (.31%)
- Digg – 12 visits (.06%)
Day 4 – Oct 15, 2008
Traffic significantly drops from 18,529 to 4,883
Overall – 4,649 visitors, 4,883 visits, 8,085 page views
- Stumbled – 3,985 visits (82%)
- Direct – 735 visits (15%)
- Delicious – 41 visits (.084%)
- Digg – 1 visit (.01%)
Note: The statistics from day 4 are not 100% complete. Site was redesigned and I forgot to put the Analytics tracking coding within the new template. This is approximately 8 hours of data.
Day 5 – Oct 16, 2008
Traffic increases from 4,883 visits to 7,262
Overall – 6,697 visitors, 7,262 visits, 12,274 page views
- Stumbled – 5,609 visits (77%)
- Direct – 1,213 visits (17%)
- Delicious – 117 (2%)
- Digg – 7 (.11%)
Day 6 – Oct 17, 2008
Traffic drops from 7,262 visits to 2,878
Overall – 2,613 visitors, 2,878 visits, 5,304 page views
- Stumbled – 1,916 visits (67%)
- Direct – 643 visits (22%)
- Delicious – 38 (1%)
- Digg – 5 (.2%)
Day 7 (Oct 18, 2008)
Traffic stays consistent with previous day
Overall – 2,601 visitors, 2,804 visits, 5,254 page views
- Stumbled – 2,034 visits (73%)
- Direct – 578 visits (21%)
- Delicious – 29 visits (1%)
- Digg – 4 visits (0%)
Day 8 – Oct 19, 2008
Traffic stays consistent with previous 2 days
Overall – 2,293 visitors, 2,528 visits, 4,919 page views
- Stumbled – 1,689 visits (67%)
- Direct – 590 visits (23%)
- Delicious – 27 visits (1%)
- Digg – 4 visits (0%)
Day 9 – Oct 20, 2008
Traffic drops from 2,528 visits to 1,939
Overall - 1,765 visitors, 1,939 visits, 3,449 page views
- Stumbled – 1,269 visits (65%)
- Direct – 473 visits (24%)
- Delicious – 19 visits (1%)
- Digg – 1 visit (0%)
Overall Results
77% of all traffic from Referring Sites (129,000 visits) 72% of that traffic is
from Stumbled Upon (120,000 visits)
21% from Direct Traffic (35,000 visits)
3% from Search Engines (4,200 visits)
88% of traffic goes to my 5-part series, 50 Free Sites to Watch Movies & TV Online
85% of visitors are new visits
My Thoughts
I went from 62 visitors a day, to about 2,500 (as of day 9). The majority of traffic now comes by way of Stumbled Upon, but Direct traffic has significantly multiplied.
Stumbled worked very well for me, providing more than 72% of overall traffic. I really enjoy the Stumbled Upon community and like the system. I had zero spam messages& only gave thumbs up & reviews for pages I liked.
Digg generated less than 1% of my traffic & less than Delicious & another referring site, bildergic.org. Digg is very popular & I’m a big fan of the site, but it takes more effort & is more dependent upon who you are, than what you submit. Overall, I had more Diggs than visits at probably a 2-1 ratio. I also had my “shouts” (notifications) turned on and received 50 or so shouts each day via e-mail notification for people wanting their stories Dugg. I eventually turned this feature off. I Dugg other stories to get a Digg for mine, which doesn’t always work so well. I know Digg can be very effective and is a great site, but perhaps I need a different approach or more involvement.
This experiment has turned me into a huge Stumbled Upon fan. I enjoy the site and the system that is in place. I’m left realizing that the content & a little luck is important in Stumbled Upon. My top traffic source is over 88% of my overall traffic.
Since my site is still very new, I believe search engine traffic will eventually begin to increase as the various search engines I submitted my URL to should begin to add my site. It’s increased to 3% recently, but I have a way to go.
Related posts:
Yes, the "20+ Sites to Watch Movies & TV Shows Online" is a fantastic post. I've been looking for a movie that hasn't been released on DVD called "Under the Rainbow" (it came out in 1981 and starred Chevy Chase and Carrie Fisher). It's possible none of the movie sites have it, but I look forward to seeing if they do.
Thanks Thomas, it did quite well for me. When I e-mailed you and I mentioned the traffic decline, that was during the time that I failed to realize I hadn’t included the Analytics code in the design.
Hopefully you’ll find your movie. There were approximately 6 more reader suggestions. May be a part 5 coming.
Wow, good to hear the traffic decline didn’t occur.
Have a good weekend, Webmaster!
I’ve used both of them after hearing of your success. You certainly hit the jackpot on stumble, I’ve yet to have such luck. I like it very much and the stumble button is incredibly addicting lol, but we’ve yet to have that one blog like you did. And yeah Digg’s frustrating. I’ve actually received slightly more traffic from Digg though. It seems if you have something good though, stumble’s gonna bring in more readers. Great experiment and I’m glad to see your traffic is still terrific as it should be. Great site.
Clapp, I completely missed this reply from you some how. I think you are right about Stumbled. My traffic is still solid, but the majority still goes to that one entry. The good think is that it was a 4-part series, so rather than 1 page view, I normally get additional page views as they navigate.
It’s interesting to see that you’ve received more Digg Traffic. Thanks for the heads up and the feedback. I’m a big Sharapova’s Thigh fan too.
Brian,
Intresting study and analysis. This would led me to do something this weekend. New to the both communities digg and stumble but will try learn something out of it…
May be if you would know a good approach, let me know that…it helps me !
Thanks,
Srini.
Thanks Srini,
From what I have learned, the best approach is to complete your Stumbled Upon profile and make sure you upload a photo of some sort. The biggest thing seems to be the content of what is submitted and maybe even a little luck. If you have a good article that appeals to others, it’s more likely to catch. I still get solid traffic to one particular article I did.
You can click on my Stumbled Upon button (right side bar) and add me. I’ll take a look at what you stumble and review it.
alright, let me complete my stumble profile and add you to my list.
Also will try to publish an intresting and potential article.
Thanks for your help !
Did you have any luck?
Well, I have joined in DIGG, added few friends like you and sending invitations to the friends list. In return I too get invitations along with diggs, this way its working a bit fine.
Coming to Stumble case, I have been stumbling, adding favourites and here it is difficult to expand my friends list. and moreover there is no method of sending invitations. I’m not sure if anybody is visiting my profile and my blog.
However, by looking your story, I was going thru the Google analytics, and it says 67% of my traffic is coming from referring site Stumble.
Need to check with DIGG’s help as I started digging just yesterday.
Finally I need help in going with Stumble.
Thanks,
Srini.
Yeah, one thing I found was that it really wasn’t dependent upon your friends list in stumble. You can have 1 friend, but a ton of stumbles. Also keep in mind that everyone that visits your site doesn’t always give a review or thumbs up or down. The 67% traffic from stumble is a very good sign.
You can send your page to friends, by using the “Send to” option on the toolbar. This feature really hasn’t really done much for me though.
Still I do not know how to drive others to my site using Stumble. I understand that everyone visiting my profile or blog may not give reviews or stumbles. But how to present my page to them, is still a question to me.
Yeah, friend list and sending pages to friends is not going to work in Stumble anyway.
I think it would be interesting to compare with this case study:
How to Get Over 10000 Visits to a Webpage in a Day
http://razvigor.blogspot.com/2007/01/how-to-get-over-10000-visits-to-webpage.html
Great experiment! I’ve been Stumbling for over a year but haven’t really been scientific about it. Probably using it more “as intended.” i.e., sharing and voting for pages I like. But you’re not the first to recommend it. Have you read Caroline Middlebrook’s StumbleRush?
Thanks Ria. After this experiment, I have been using SU just as you. I enjoy the community. I have not read Stumblerush, I’ll have to google it.
I would be curious as to other factors…how sticky was the traffic?
How many of your visitors were one and done vs. how many actually visited other pages?
Did you use a metric to determine how effective the traffic was in general like a newsletter, opt-in form or RSS subscription? How did it go?
Leo,
I'm glad you asked these questions. One project I have planned to take on during the holiday break was a continuation of this analysis now that it's been over 2 months.
Only this time, I'll be analyzing additional factors with stumbled upon and digg & also go beyond to take a look at all traffic sources.
A newsletter is also in the works in the near future. Thank you for stopping by & providing your valuable input.
Brian