Check that....we're number one ~ and we still try harder!
According to
http://www.Alexa.com theBubbler is currently in the top 50,000 websites in the world!
Alexa is an internet site traffic ranking tool. The numbers for sites with less traffic are subject to traffic manipulation and sample errors. Sites ranked in the top 100,000 are more reliably ranked and that reliability increases as sites approach the top traffic spots (held by the likes of Yahoo and Google).
Today's stats for theBubbler.com:
Rank
Today......1 wk. Avg.......3 mos. Avg......3 mos. Change
47,161.......63,105............129,501........up 142,331
Reach per million users:
15.................11...................6.75...... .....up 101%
Page Views per user:
15.5..............12.7..................9.6....... ....up 104%
Of all the sites listed at Alexa Top > Regional > North America > United States > Wisconsin > Guides and Directories, theBubbler.com is # 1 !
Technically, there is one site there that gets more traffic, but it's not a community like theBubbler, and the traffic is for the aggregate of all 50 states in the directory. The Wisconsin portion of that traffic would be a fraction of the traffic theBubbler enjoys.
Ranking in the top 50,000 sites worldwide is quite a feat. That's 47,000 and change out of 75,000,000 to 200,000,000 websites, depending how you count them (and whether blogs are included in the count).
As a matter of fact, there are only a couple of Wisconsin-based web presences that come close or eclipse us. We're in a virtual traffic deadlock with OnMilwaukee - yet Alexa says they average 2.8 pages viewed per user and we average 15.5! And we're growing faster!
JSonline, the site of the Journal Sentinel, is the biggest traffic generator we know of - yet they average only 2 pages viewed per visitor according to Alexa. There are probably a couple of other large Wisconsin media companies with good online stats, too.
The best news, perhaps, for all Wisconsin viewers is that our classified advertising is free. As the word spreads (hey, it's free so we can't afford a lot of newspaper or broadcast ads - see the 'p.s.' below), I believe more and more of the print and online traffic of the Journal Sentinel will come here. Why pay big bucks when you can get your classifieds for free?
As far as that goes, our CPM (cost per thousand visitors) for theBubbler.com is one-seventh of the cost per visitor of the Journal Sentinel online. That's right, the same eyeballs cost one-seventh as much to engage at theBubbler.com...in many cases much less. And we'll bend over backwards to make sponsorships work for Wisconsin companies.
It's been a long road. TheBubbler's been a pet project forever (in internet terms, that's ten years). See Alexa's way-back machine to view earlier versions of Wisconsin's Information Source. From the very beginning I've believed that the internet is missing one thing, a sense of geography ~ hence, 'the Bubbler'.
Perhaps what I like most is that theBubbler is community-driven, not profit-driven. I'm all for making a buck, but if that's all theBubbler did it wouldn't be worth it. The sense of community has to come first....the opportunity to earn a living at doing a great service to our State is the bonus. We hope some astute Wisconsin advertsing agency media buyers will pick up on that.
Regards,
Keith
p.s.: Tell all your friends, family and co-workers in Wisconsin about us, will you?
p.p.s.: We'll be unveiling new Wisconsin online ventures soon. Please stay tuned. Try a subscription to the Water Cooler News (mid-way down the left-hand navigation). You'll get a great weekly email with Wisconsin & theBubbler features - free - and you can unsubscribe anytime with just one click. No emails rented or sold to anyone. Period.
