Seen over on T-Tips:
4/19-- Alexa, the Amazon.com owned database of Web site statistics, most well known for its traffic rankings, has some interesting numbers pertaining to snowsport media Web sites. As one would expect, the Web sites with busy forums and large, active communities, lead the list of ski and snowboard sites with the most traffic, and by a wide margin, although there are a few surprises. First, a little background on Alexa and its traffic data collection methodology.
In the simplest of terms, Alexa has established a ranking system for Web sites worldwide, based upon the level of traffic each site receives from the number of people who visit with the Alexa toolbar installed on their computer. The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data, from what Alexa says are millions of users of its toolbar. The Alexa toolbar has features useful to tech and webmaster-types, so Alexa's results tend to be biased in favor of sites with content relevant to those folks. For purposes of comparison within a specific category, such as snowsports media Web sites, Alexa's traffic rankings are worthy of note for those with an interest in the subject.
Finally, here is a little perspective on the actual numbers from Aaron Wall, author of the search engine bible The SEO Book: "A lower Alexa number means a greater level of traffic, and the traffic drops off logarithmically as the ranking number increases." Wall adds that there are techniques webmasters can use to raise their Web site traffic ranking on Alexa, "but if it shows your rankings in the millions, then your site likely has next to no traffic."
Here are the April 19th Alexa Traffic Rankings of most of the ski and snowboard media sites we could think of:
..*new this season **a backdoor to the Couloir site .***defunct, no new updates since 2003
Site
Rank
Tetongravity.com 34,013
Telemarktalk.com 58,760
Skipressworld.com 155,333
Epicski.com 177,898
Telemarktips.com 190,910
Wildsnow.com 267,924
Biglines.com 440,111
Splitboard.com 520,483
Thepiton.com 670,238
Couloirmag.com 1,145,059
TetonAT.com* 1,542,992
Earnyourturns.com** 2,561,731
Freeheellife.com 3,366,898
Descender.com*** 6,913,358
Among the surprises is the relatively strong showing of Lou Dawson's Alpine Touring oriented blog, Wildsnow.com. AT still represents a tiny (but growing) portion of the overall ski industry, with equipment sales of around one third that of tele, which is itself a very small niche, with gear sales less than 3% that of alpine skiing (according to the latest SIA specialty store sales data). For a blog site without a true community type forum, Lou would appear to have done very well in building an audience. Credit Dawson's dedication and work ethic in producing near daily fresh content, as well as his passion and authoritative knowledge, which come through loud in clear in everything he writes.
Outdoor industry insider blog "The Piton" also surprised us. Although not all that high on the list, The Piton's content is narrowly directed to a very limited potential market. But what The Piton lacks in visitors it more than makes up for in attitude... it's an entertaining blog that has gained an audience within the industry by actually having something to say and to to stand for... the pseudo anonymity is a little tiresome but with blog entries like this, it's understandable, especially if you know some of the players and how incestuous the outdoor industry can be. Tomorrow, anyone of these guys and gals could be working for today's object of scorn. Still, The Piton is great fun, and it's cool to see that it's being read
I looked up some more that they missed:
Powmag 373,497
Freeskier 280,328
Newschoolers 105,531
SAC 16,416:eek:
