I never expected, when I wrote this small post challenging one by-the-way assertion of The Express Tribune's publisher about ET's online presence vis a vis that of its far more established rival newspaper, Dawn, that it would lead to an all-out flame war in the comments section.
Those jumping to ET's defence began first with trying to discredit our data, interpretation and our web-savvy, followed it up with spin about what was really meant by asserting that ET was "neck in neck" [sic] online with Dawn (hint: it can mean nothing other than readership especially when you're talking about circulations), and ended up by accusing us of carrying out some sort of campaign against ET. I was hugely tempted not to further indulge such grandiose notions of self-importance and (supposed) victimization, not to mention the fact that the comparative online reach of Pakistan's English print media is not an immensely critical issue in my opinion in the larger scheme of things or even as far as the Pakistani media is concerned.
But the reason for a new post on the same topic is because, for one, we promised an independent and thorough analysis to our readers and because some of our friends have gone to great lengths to compile the data for us. More importantly, there is a principle at stake here, namely that of our credibility. We need to set the record straight about some of the wild assertions made in the comments of the last post.
So, without further ado, we present to you a Comparison of the Top English Language News Websites in Pakistan, conducted by our friends at Creative Chaos. (In the interests of full disclosure, it should be pointed out that Creative Chaos is a technology company operating since 2000, was responsible for the pre-launch design and development of The Express Tribune's website, and has also worked with Dawn five years ago to develop their online classifieds (the site was later shut down, ostensibly because management felt it was driving traffic away from the print edition). In addition, the company's CEO, Shakir Husain, is also a columnist for The News and occasionally writes for the Dawn Group's advertising and marketing-related publication Aurora.)
The comparisons of Dawn.com, thenews.com.pk and tribune.com.pk were done using four different internationally renowned website analysis tools, i.e. Compete, WebsiteTrafficSpy, Alexa, and doubleclick ad planner by Google, all of which estimate the web traffic of sites based on numerous data streams and their own analytical algorithms. In addition, social media (Facebook, Twitter) influence of these sites was also separately analysed using Klout which basically calculates its rankings using criteria such as number of retweets, quality of tweets etc. Let us go through them one by one.
WEBSITE ANALYTICS
1. Compete
According to its website, Compete:
This is the data Compete generated:
As you may see, Dawn has a substantial lead over both ET and The News. However, ET and The News can certainly be considered "neck and neck" so far with ET on the up and The News remaining more or less steady.
2. WebsiteTrafficSpy
Though there is no explanation on the WebsiteTrafficSpy website about its methodology of traffic analysis, Creative Chaos believes it aggregates different sources such as Alexa to provide a comprehensive result.
This is the data WebsiteTrafficSpy generated:
According to WebsiteTrafficSpy's estimates, Dawn has 1.96million monthly users, putting it 685,000 ahead of ET which has almost 1.28million monthly users. The News meanwhile, with an estimated 0.93million users is about 350,000 monthly users behind ET. It also puts Dawn's pageviews at approximately 275,000 per day as opposed to ET's 125,000 per day and The News' 92,000 per day. Finally, it ranks Dawn's website at 3,927 worldwide while ET's is ranked at 8,151 and The News' at 11,503.
3. Alexa
According to its website:
The overall picture generated by Alexa is as follows:
Note that, as opposed to the vociferous pointations from some commenters in the last post that ET's ranking was only 4 or 6 places behind Dawn according to Alexa, the 'within Pakistan' ranking differs by 13 places. However, in the overall scheme of things (since sites are accessed not just from within the country) Dawn's website is ranked by Alexa at 3,914 while ET's website is ranked at 8,181, a whopping 4,267 places behind. The News, meanwhile is far behind in terms of both rankings. (These rankings are, incidentally, pretty much the same as on WebsiteTrafficSpy.)
In case, you're interested, Alexa also provides snapshots of different parameters that can be looked at. We've included three of the ones most pertinent to the discussion at hand:
In terms of daily traffic ranking:
In terms of daily reach:
In terms of daily page views:
4. doubleclick ad planner by Google
This is how doubleclick ad planner explains itself on its website:
The data generated separately for all three sites is as follows:
This tool once again puts Dawn far ahead of both others with almost 80,000 daily unique visitors. However, according to doubleclick ad planner by Google, The News with some 36,000 daily unique visitors actually edges out ET with about 28,000. Interestingly, The News also has people spending the most time on their site, an average of 18:20 minutes as opposed to Dawn's 7:40 and ET's 6:20. Generally, that might be considered a good thing. However something tells me that's probably simply because that's how long it takes The News' online readers to figure out how to get to the story they really want in the clutter that is that site.
Conclusion
As you can confirm from all the tools used, our original assertions using Google Trends for Websites as a tool were pretty much on the mark. They are not contradicted by a single other tool.
SOCIAL MEDIA
While we did not touch upon social media in our earlier post, since some commenters brought it up, here's a brief analysis.
Social media usage is the one place where ET has a very strong presence and ET seems to use social media well with some of its articles shared around on Facebook by the thousands. Not that it means anything in substantive terms, but Dawn has 37,000 'fans' on Facebook, followed by ET which has about 23,000. The News is almost dormant on Facebook with only 8,000 'fans'.
On Twitter, however, ET really comes into its own, with the widest reach and the largest number of users. As per Creative Chaos' analysis:
5. Klout
As per its website:
The following data was generated by Klout for all three:
What this shows is that ET and its writers are, by far, using social media in the best way to engage audiences. How far that goes in driving traffic towards their website remains to be seen but certainly they have the right idea about digital audiences.
Incidentally, just for fun, we also checked out our own cache on social media using basically only our Twitter presence (Klout did not ask us for our Facebook account details). Here is the result for @cpyala, which as you can see is "neck and neck" in many respects with ET. Make of it what you will.
At the very least, I hope this exhaustive exposition will put to rest the sniping about us having used the "wrong tools" to show ET up and the wild assertions based more on knee-jerk reactions than any real understanding of anything. As we said last time, ET has considerable achievements to its name in its first year. If only its supporters would focus on the genuine ones rather than getting stroppy when imagined ones are called out.
Finally a big thank you to the folks at Creative Chaos for all their hard work and cooperation.
Those jumping to ET's defence began first with trying to discredit our data, interpretation and our web-savvy, followed it up with spin about what was really meant by asserting that ET was "neck in neck" [sic] online with Dawn (hint: it can mean nothing other than readership especially when you're talking about circulations), and ended up by accusing us of carrying out some sort of campaign against ET. I was hugely tempted not to further indulge such grandiose notions of self-importance and (supposed) victimization, not to mention the fact that the comparative online reach of Pakistan's English print media is not an immensely critical issue in my opinion in the larger scheme of things or even as far as the Pakistani media is concerned.
But the reason for a new post on the same topic is because, for one, we promised an independent and thorough analysis to our readers and because some of our friends have gone to great lengths to compile the data for us. More importantly, there is a principle at stake here, namely that of our credibility. We need to set the record straight about some of the wild assertions made in the comments of the last post.
So, without further ado, we present to you a Comparison of the Top English Language News Websites in Pakistan, conducted by our friends at Creative Chaos. (In the interests of full disclosure, it should be pointed out that Creative Chaos is a technology company operating since 2000, was responsible for the pre-launch design and development of The Express Tribune's website, and has also worked with Dawn five years ago to develop their online classifieds (the site was later shut down, ostensibly because management felt it was driving traffic away from the print edition). In addition, the company's CEO, Shakir Husain, is also a columnist for The News and occasionally writes for the Dawn Group's advertising and marketing-related publication Aurora.)
The comparisons of Dawn.com, thenews.com.pk and tribune.com.pk were done using four different internationally renowned website analysis tools, i.e. Compete, WebsiteTrafficSpy, Alexa, and doubleclick ad planner by Google, all of which estimate the web traffic of sites based on numerous data streams and their own analytical algorithms. In addition, social media (Facebook, Twitter) influence of these sites was also separately analysed using Klout which basically calculates its rankings using criteria such as number of retweets, quality of tweets etc. Let us go through them one by one.
WEBSITE ANALYTICS
1. Compete
According to its website, Compete:
"Provides free information for every site on the Internet including site traffic history and competitive analytics; a list of available promotional codes across thousands of online retailers; and site-specific trust scores based on up-to-the-minute data from Compete and third party security services."
This is the data Compete generated:
Click to Enlarge
As you may see, Dawn has a substantial lead over both ET and The News. However, ET and The News can certainly be considered "neck and neck" so far with ET on the up and The News remaining more or less steady.
2. WebsiteTrafficSpy
Though there is no explanation on the WebsiteTrafficSpy website about its methodology of traffic analysis, Creative Chaos believes it aggregates different sources such as Alexa to provide a comprehensive result.
This is the data WebsiteTrafficSpy generated:
Click to Enlarge
According to WebsiteTrafficSpy's estimates, Dawn has 1.96million monthly users, putting it 685,000 ahead of ET which has almost 1.28million monthly users. The News meanwhile, with an estimated 0.93million users is about 350,000 monthly users behind ET. It also puts Dawn's pageviews at approximately 275,000 per day as opposed to ET's 125,000 per day and The News' 92,000 per day. Finally, it ranks Dawn's website at 3,927 worldwide while ET's is ranked at 8,151 and The News' at 11,503.
3. Alexa
According to its website:
"Alexa is continually crawling all publicly-available websites to create a series of snapshots of the web. We use the data we collect to create features and services:
Site Info: Traffic Ranks, search analytics, demographics, and more
Related Links: Sites that are similar or relevant to the one you are currently viewing
Alexa has been crawling the web since early 1996, and we have constantly increased the amount of information that we gather. We are currently gathering approximately 1.6 terabytes (1600 gigabytes) of web content per day. After each snapshot of the web (which take approximately two months to complete), Alexa has gathered 4.5 billion pages from over 16 million sites."
The overall picture generated by Alexa is as follows:
Click to Enlarge
Note that, as opposed to the vociferous pointations from some commenters in the last post that ET's ranking was only 4 or 6 places behind Dawn according to Alexa, the 'within Pakistan' ranking differs by 13 places. However, in the overall scheme of things (since sites are accessed not just from within the country) Dawn's website is ranked by Alexa at 3,914 while ET's website is ranked at 8,181, a whopping 4,267 places behind. The News, meanwhile is far behind in terms of both rankings. (These rankings are, incidentally, pretty much the same as on WebsiteTrafficSpy.)
In case, you're interested, Alexa also provides snapshots of different parameters that can be looked at. We've included three of the ones most pertinent to the discussion at hand:
In terms of daily traffic ranking:
Red=Dawn, Blue=The News, Green=ET (Click to Enlarge)
In terms of daily reach:
Red=Dawn, Blue=The News, Green=ET (Click to Enlarge)
In terms of daily page views:
Red=Dawn, Blue=The News, Green=ET (Click to Enlarge)
4. doubleclick ad planner by Google
This is how doubleclick ad planner explains itself on its website:
"Refine your online advertising with DoubleClick Ad Planner, a free media planning tool that can help you:
Identify websites your target customers are likely to visitDefine audiences by demographics and interests.
Search for websites relevant to your target audience.
Access unique users, page views, and other data for millions of websites from over 40 countries.
Easily build media plans for yourself or your clientsCreate lists of websites where you'd like to advertise.
Generate aggregated website statistics for your media plan."
The data generated separately for all three sites is as follows:
Dawn's traffic stats: Click to Enlarge
ET's traffic stats: Click to Enlarge
The News' traffic stats: Click to Enlarge
This tool once again puts Dawn far ahead of both others with almost 80,000 daily unique visitors. However, according to doubleclick ad planner by Google, The News with some 36,000 daily unique visitors actually edges out ET with about 28,000. Interestingly, The News also has people spending the most time on their site, an average of 18:20 minutes as opposed to Dawn's 7:40 and ET's 6:20. Generally, that might be considered a good thing. However something tells me that's probably simply because that's how long it takes The News' online readers to figure out how to get to the story they really want in the clutter that is that site.
Conclusion
As you can confirm from all the tools used, our original assertions using Google Trends for Websites as a tool were pretty much on the mark. They are not contradicted by a single other tool.
SOCIAL MEDIA
While we did not touch upon social media in our earlier post, since some commenters brought it up, here's a brief analysis.
Social media usage is the one place where ET has a very strong presence and ET seems to use social media well with some of its articles shared around on Facebook by the thousands. Not that it means anything in substantive terms, but Dawn has 37,000 'fans' on Facebook, followed by ET which has about 23,000. The News is almost dormant on Facebook with only 8,000 'fans'.
On Twitter, however, ET really comes into its own, with the widest reach and the largest number of users. As per Creative Chaos' analysis:
"ET's use of Twitter is by far the most aggressive. Not only do they share all links, their writers do the same as well. Very recently, Dawn has started to share its links online whereas The News remains dormant."
5. Klout
As per its website:
"The Klout Score is the measurement of your overall online influence. The scores range from 1 to 100 with higher scores representing a wider and stronger sphere of influence. Klout uses over 35 variables on Facebook and Twitter to measure True Reach, Amplification Probability, and Network Score.
True Reach is the size of your engaged audience and is based on those of your followers and friends who actively listen and react to your messages. Amplification Score is the likelihood that your messages will generate actions (retweets, @messages, likes and comments) and is on a scale of 1 to 100. Network score indicates how influential your engage audience is and is also on a scale from 1 to 100. The Klout score is highly correlated to clicks, comments and retweets.
We believe that influence is the ability to drive people to action -- "action" might be defined as a reply, a retweet, a comment, or a click. We perform significant testing to ensure that the average click-through rate on links shared is highly correlated with a person's Klout Score. The 25+ variables used to generate scores for each of these categories are normalized across the whole data set and run through our analytics engine. After the first pass of analytics, we apply a specific weight to each data point. We then run the factors through our machine-learning analysis and calculate the final Klout Score. The final Klout Score is a representation of how successful a person is at engaging their audience and how big of an impact their messages have on people."
The following data was generated by Klout for all three:
Dawn: Klout score 59 (Click to Enlarge)
ET: Klout score 67 (Click to Enlarge)
The News: Klout score 58 (Click to Enlarge)
What this shows is that ET and its writers are, by far, using social media in the best way to engage audiences. How far that goes in driving traffic towards their website remains to be seen but certainly they have the right idea about digital audiences.
Incidentally, just for fun, we also checked out our own cache on social media using basically only our Twitter presence (Klout did not ask us for our Facebook account details). Here is the result for @cpyala, which as you can see is "neck and neck" in many respects with ET. Make of it what you will.
@cpyala: Klout score 64 (Click to Enlarge)
At the very least, I hope this exhaustive exposition will put to rest the sniping about us having used the "wrong tools" to show ET up and the wild assertions based more on knee-jerk reactions than any real understanding of anything. As we said last time, ET has considerable achievements to its name in its first year. If only its supporters would focus on the genuine ones rather than getting stroppy when imagined ones are called out.
Finally a big thank you to the folks at Creative Chaos for all their hard work and cooperation.
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