The Wardman Wire

[Update: the urls have oberstretched the template, so I'll edit the article over the w/e to make it more readable - my apologies. Matt].

I have a script installed on the Wardman Wire which allows me to count which links are being used to leave the site. It doesn’t get used on everything, but when I need to monitor how popular links are, it allows me to do so easily. A good example where I use the script is in keeping track of how many people of clicking on “sponsor” adverts. These counts were reset at New Year.

The “76″ is the average (mean) since I installed the script several months ago - the figure is much lower than the current figures as I didn’t start using the facility widely until January.

How does it work?

It works in the usual way for such scripts - by doing a “bounce” via a location that records the click in a file, and the counts can be viewed in a web browser. The one I use is called Click Manager (this link is redirected so I will know how many of you go to look), and has been around for a few years.

Until the time of writing of this article, there have been 319 “out-clicks” today (Ok - yesterday - when this article was written), mainly from the Daily Roundup.

The counts get reset every month.

So what is Popular in the Roundup on Thursday 24th January?

I’m not going to look at this in detail article by article, but these were the statistics from today’s roundup. This is a straight (rather crude) dump of the links. They are not in the same order as the article, because the Link Index Number is assigned when the link is first clicked. 437 links which bounce through the script have been clicked since New Year.

These are the numbers from today’s roundup:

The three fields are: Link Index Number, Link itself, Number of Clicks.

422 http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/larry_elliott/2008/01/the_fed_moves_but_is_it_too_la.html 21
423 http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/dan_kennedy/2008/01/googling_the_new_york_times.html 21
424 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7206137.stm 20
425 http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jan/24/housingmarket.jsainsbury 20
426 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=510054 16
427 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/sports/othersports/24mask.html?_r=1& 16
428 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3238615.ece 22
429 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article3238697.ece 21
430 http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/money/tax/article3241475.ece 22
431 http://www.economist.com/obituary/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10530041 20
432 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7205623.stm 21
433 http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_7170000/newsid_7171300?redirect=7171353.stm 16
434 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bradford/7204543.stm 21
435 http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/nol/newsid_7170000/newsid_7171300?redirect=7171353.stm&news=1&nbwm=1&nbram=1&bbwm=1&bbram=1 3
436 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/sports/othersports/24mask.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin 4
437 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=510054&in_page_id=1770 5

And the Conclusions?

The one conclusion that jumps out is the clear unpopularity of the last three stories in the list. People were not interested in:

435: The BBC report about blogging in Wales. It is an older link, so perhaps you have all seen it.
436: Olympic teams and the Smog in Beijing.
437: George Soros’ opinion of our prospects for recession.

And what about Wednesday 23rd January?

Yesterday there was a contrast. Here is the list of links:

The three fields are: Link Index Number, Link itself, Number of Clicks.

400 http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/richard_adams/2008/01/slasher_flick.html 17
401 http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article3362252.ece 36
402 http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/politics/brassneck/jan08/red_blue_swing_boroughs_of_london.htm 17
403 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/magnus_linklater/article3234441.ece 17
404 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/article3204370.ece 19
405 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7203740.stm 18
406 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7203421.stm 18
407 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b5e4c196-c938-11dc-9807-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1 18
408 http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2245036,00.html 2
409 http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2245216,00.html 2
410 http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jan/23/marketturmoil.interestrates2 9
411 http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article3359122.ece 9
412 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=509693&in_page_id=1770 2
413 http://news.sky.com/skynews/picture_gallery/0,,91221-1301614,00.html 2
414 http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article3229659.ece 9
415 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7202105.stm 9
416 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7202364.stm 9
417 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7202600.stm 9
418 http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0 8
419 http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0 7
420 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=509693 7
421 http://news.sky.com/skynews/picture_gallery/0 7

And the Conclusions?

Two facts stand out:

Firstly, one story - number 401 - was twice as popular as anything else. This was an obscure legal story buried in the Independent about the current negotiations for fees for lawyers. Frankly, I don’t understand why that was the popular one (except that bloggers are either lawyers, jealous of lawyers, pitiers lawyers, or money-grubbing nerds). Or perhaps M’Learned Friends from Mr Usmanov’s lawyers Schillings were reading.

Secondly, these figures divide into two plateaus:

• 400-407 inclusive had - 8 stories - had a total of 160 clickthroughs. 20 each.
• 408-421 inclusive - 14 stories - had a total of 87 clickthroughs. Just over 6 each.

That is a dramatic difference, and it is due to my breaking of the article into an excerpt and a continuation. The excerpt appears on the front page, and readers are required to click to read the rest of the article. That implies that a roundup should comprise a slightly smaller number of news articles (which saves time anyway), and that (at least for this type of article) it should not be split.

Finally, a number of articles were not popular at all:

• 408: Congo conflict causes 45,000 deaths a month: study
• 409: Top universities fail to spend £3m set aside to attract poorer students
• 412: Amazing photos from Nasa probe reveal mystery figure on Red Planet
• 413: Consultancy Deloitte has predicted the big technology talking points for 2008.

I cannot see a pattern here. Any suggestions?

Wrapping Up

These are my statistics - do you have any comments or comparisons?

Tags: aardwark click-counter, count clicks, measurement, politics, money grubbing, alisher usmanov, schillings[tags]aardwark click-counter, count clicks, measurement, politics, money grubbing, alisher usmanov, schillings[/tags]