Which of the two major University of Louisville message boards is the most popular, Cardinal Sports/Rivals or Inside The Ville? (Rivals is the green line, ITV the blue line on the graph.)
The site were almost even in terms of unique visitors during the most recent tracking period, according to Compete.com. They each attracted about 33,000 unique visitors in May. The number of return visitors is, of course, a different issue, and access to those numbers entails a fee.
What’s really interesting is that the unique visitors for both sites appear to peak in mid-April and May — after the football and basketball seasons are over. One possible explanation is that conference expansion debate was in full swing at the time.
Somewhat surprising in a number of ways. What’s your take?
Some very surprising stats there on Rivals and Scout. I don’t check out either site very often…but Sonja still goes to Rivals and posts. Those haven’t been often lately, since we stay busy with Cardinal Couple.
Although we haven’t been “banned” by either site or branded as a competitior, neither site chooses to acknowledge our existance…unlike UofL Card Game, Cardinal Dominance, Card Chronicle, Cardinal Laws or Ditchball…who actively promote us.
I guess it has something to do with the “premium” pay option. Or maybe since we focus on women’s sports at UofL..we are a small fish in the blogging seas.
Still, we are happy with our 2500 hits a week and pledge to continue to share the enjoyment and excitement of what is women’s sports at UofL with our readers there, here at Card Game and Cardinal Dominance.
We’re also very grateful to this site, Card Dom and the others that list us in their “Cardinal Sites”.
I just thought that Rivals had a dominate lead over Scout.
BTW, thanks for still letting me post here. Hughes and Lindsey consider me a “competitor”, even though I do not sell Louisville information and just give it to the fans for free. Can’t be posting that “premium” info for free at the free boards before they do, since they expect to tax the fans for it.
The bannings were a blessing, due to now I have MANY of their readers and members now at CD!
They thought banning me would stop the “problem” (which was me), but now MANY of their top people have followed me to CD.
Talk about hustling BACKWARDS!
I just post at CD, here and at Cardinal Couple. Every now and then at Card Chronicle. Hell, at least I know the sites I visit are covering Louisville for the sheer love of it, and are not run by salesmen trying to turn a profit. Fans before salesmen.
I think we should all be one, big happy Cardinal family, but Hughes and Lindsey are mad at me for posting the same stuff they are, but for FREE without taxing the fans. So therefore, I am the enemy.
I have two good sponsors. To tax the fans too would be just plain greedy IMO. I have not even attempted to get some BIG sponsors yet.
You should not have to pay to keep up with your team.
Remember, it is only “premium” if scout and rivals tell you it is, and ONLY when you have to pay for it with hard earned cash. Then it makes it “premium”, or makes the person paying for it a stone-cold sucker.
Oh well, out to Seneca to video interview Coach Louis Dover and DaMarcus Smith about his HUGE weekend at the ESPN Rise Elite 11 Quarterback Camp!
GO CARDS!
I’m all for the American free enterprise system.
But to answer your initial question, yes, I am surprised in your findings that rivals is on cue with scout.
And remember, this is two months ago.
WOW! Those are wild stats. Our week just concluded at 12 a.m. last night, and we had 7,163 IPs (not hits) come through the Cardinal Dominance last week. Looking at rivals currently, they can not be much more busier than we are. Scout on views looks like they are killing rivals. What is the difference between unique visitors and IP addresses? Just “hits” count bots and everything, but I am unaware of how the unique visitors work and are counted. What is the criteria for a unique visitor? Just trying to figure out where guys like you and I stand against the corporate giants.
The surprise in this is that Rivals fares very strongly in the overall comparison. The number of posts is a different matter, of course. I think many of the same people visit all the sites. Who are these “corporate giants” whereof you speak?
Well, I was assuming it was scout and rivals in relation to the Louisville sports community.
Now was that graph just for the message boards only, and not the article views too, right?
Just was shocking to see their totals from last year in July 2009.
I just thought the totals would have been higher, and that scout would be far ahead of rivals.
Rivals is a ghost town right now.
Not my findings but those of a neutral tracker. It is apparently all traffic to both sites for all the features. While people may not post, that doesn’t mean they are not checking in. Is perception reality?
The data from websites like these is almost always way off.
While the numbers are not exact and one could possibly get different stats from a variety of other web sites, I would venture that the competitiveness between the U of L sites would be about the same on any of the web trackers.
Uncle Danny seems to know what he’s talking about
The leveling off might be partially influenced by the Derby Festival activities.
Danny, the interest seems to be at its peak during Derby Festival activities. Check the chart again.
The original wording in this article said leveling off & I was responding to that. The chart can level off at a high point.
Can’t argue with that.
Don’t Rivals and ITV both have a lot of recruiting coverage? This off season in particular, it seems to me, have more than the usual recruiting buzz – largely due to the arrival of Charlie Strong and his staff.
The “spike,” as you call it, may be due to the whining and complaining that occurs after a disappointing season. I’ll bet there is much more activity on those boards after losses than wins.
Wow, that is surprising, especially because ITV gets so many more comments. It certainly indicates that a lot more people than we thought are visiting both sites. There are many other stats that could be explored but these are very interesting.