Rhiza Labs FluTracker Forum

I do Internet Marketing and am constantly comparing my site to the competition. I decided to run the stats on this board, comparing it to the next 3 top forums on the Internet that specialize on this subject. Following is a chart of the results for October web traffic. Please note that the numbers indicate "Unique Visitors".

Suffice it to say, this particular forum has rocketed to the top of the list in a mere 2 months time - far surpassing what others have worked for years to do. I like the way this forum has been organized. I do think it would be nice to have some more ephasis on Preparedness - because at the end of the day, most people will be on their own if this gets much worse.



Niman, Rhiza - either of you want to collaborate on a short marketing message that can further promote the site? Seems a shame not to share this with more than just 99,000 individuals. I know that sounds like a lot - but lets face it.... that's the population of a medium sized rural county in my neck ofhte woods. Not much when you consider the global community.

Anyone have any ideas on how to get the word out to more people? It's realy getting late in the game - and at some point we might see a sudden "Panic Spike". Based on the above chart, we can see that across the board interest has jumped in this topic. My opinion is that we're going to hit a dramatic spike within the month... because lets face it, this situation is steadily marching forward, regardless of whether the media reports it, the WHO or CDC shares data or not.... the situation continues to develop, and the number of people seeking credible information is increeasing as well.

I use twitterfeed and rss2twitter to auto post the newest 5 articles every half hour to my twitter account :-)

Yayyy!
Me - I just fill the email boxes of WHO, CDC, NIH, and other agencies + tons of news media. Then I get tired of the hard work and take a break by posting on boards.

Since I posted this I've gotten more than 1 call & email regarding the fact that perhaps my chart rankings are off. In fairness I should mention that some of the other boards actually rank higher on other Web Ranking websites (quantcast.com & alexa.com for example).

But I realy do not care which site is doing better, or what underlying political bickering between site members / owners is going on. MY point is that across the board, ALL the boards are receiving increased traffic.

I'm working on some "Preparedness and Alternative Treatment" posts to put here, and I would hope that this site could develop even more "Preparedness content" as well. I'm realy sick of whackaddodle conspiracy theorists, but equally sick of people that sound like paid parrots for the "Official" agencies. I think that sometimes we all lose track of the fact that this thing could get really bad (already is bad for many), and most of the poor people that will pay the ultimate price - wil do so because they had no real leadership they could trust to guide them.

I frequent all the boards I've listed, and spend inordinate amounts of time on CDC / WHO & NIH sites as well. My wife spends time researching treatment issues. Pursuit of Truth & Solutions is what it's ultimately all about - and there isn't anything wrong with vigorous discussion, nor even disagreements, as long as the ultimate goal of reaching a truthful conclusion, and getting that information out to the people that need it is achieved.

And if one person makes money in the pursit of the goal, or another does so as a non-profit - it's all good to me - as long as the goals are met.

"Peace be to all that strive sincererely to arrive at the truth in order to help the people."

There already is a preparation thread here, before you start another.

Thanks for the feedback, Mountain!

BTW... the actual address of our site is: http://flutracker.rhizalabs.com The stats for that site are way higher than just the message board. We serve up a lot more traffic there, and specifically to the maps that are embedded on hundreds of media outlets' websites.

Unique daily visitors on Compete.com = 211,532
Our one month average ranking on Alexa = 38,323
Quantcast unique max for people = 363,000

And... we use Google Analytics, which says we've had 1,372,321 visits, 3,194,105 pageviews and 882,918 absolute unique visitors in the past 30 days.

We do need help getting the word out to a larger audience. We've offered in the past, and continue to offer, to help provide resources to other flu tracking message boards and statistics sites. I think combining forces is the best way to go and achieve more of a critical mass around data reporting and discussion.

-josh

_________________
http://twitter.com/jknauer

Below is a nifty chart for October/November that shows how web traffic is impacted related to News Media Frenzy. Late October and early November saw confusion and drama soar as the Ukranian story was mangled. But alas - such are the masses that they settle again as no big news unfolds.

Ironically, I just asked one of the mods:

I have been told by a 2rd party, actually owner of another forum, that the only SECTION that is crawled regulary on this board is the "NEWS" forum section.

I should know all this stuff since I'm in the business so to speak, but I don't. Looks like we need to tweak our setup with Search Engines.

Considering what took place in the Vit D thread the last day or so, that may be a blessing!

(Sorry - I had to say that. TMV, I do not mean to knock you here. The whole thing was unfortunate, but happens when humans are human.)

I've also noticed that this site also has more posts than others.

LOL - not a problem rml. Yes it was very unfortunate. GAguide abandoned me in my hour of sickness and need! It's all his fault! hehehe

And yes - this site has some of the best discussion of any board I have seen. Of course Niman makes a pretty decent "Centerpiece" for topics to revolve around.