Family Institute of Connecticut claims 350,000 hits a month?

Since I have a newborn, I'm up at all time of the night and I haven't been able to report, videotape, and post as much as I like (which is driving me nuts).

Now that I'm on baby time, I've been reading stuff online when the little one cries herself to sleep and I came across this post at Drinking Liberally in New Milford entitled "Does the FIC lie about their readership?"

On the announcement of their revamped FIC Blog they tout their great numbers:

Connecticut in the Crosshairs began in 2004 and quickly became one of the most viewed political blogs in the state. The media tried to ignore us and the liberal blogs loved to mock us (which just made us smile and blog more!) but we kept growing until we were receiving over 350,000 hits a month. Given that the technology we were using was, frankly, junk, this was a major coup. But we’ve learned a lot since then and we now have one of the best blogging platforms around. In the future we will be adding even more functionality, with a video and audio podcast already in the works.

Ah...what?

I had to go to their site to make sure I was reding this right and to my amazement, they actually claimed this.

Now look, I'm not saying I'm the most viewed blog in Connecticut but I do know a thing or two about reading traffic and this 350,000 number sounds a but fishy.

To illustrate this, lets take a look at a few of the largest blogs in Connecticut and check their traffic over the last year.

1. My Left Nutmeg:

2. Connecticut Local Politics:

3. ConnecticutBLOG:

4. Connecticut Bob:


Now, you need to take a few things into consideration here when you read these numbers.

1. Site Meter does not record hits from people who read sites with RSS readers. For instance, during the primary, I know for a fact that a large number of people who read my site, viewed it using a RSS reader or by using a service such as Bloglines. During my biggest months, I would say that the numbers on Site Meter are off by a large amount due to the fact that most people probably read my site without actually trping in my URL (which would be picked up by sitemeter). In other words, I'm sure my largest months well well over 120,000 MAX.

2. During the summer, the Lamont/Lieberman primary was the most watched race in the country and Spazeboy, CTBob and myself really put videoblogging on the scene.

3. Since My Left Nutmeg is a community-based site, the thing about RSS readers doesn't apply as much since most readers would go to the site and post something; therefore, the site meter number is probably closer to the real thing.

Okay, given those factors, HOW CAN FIC claim to have 350,000 hits in a MONTH. CTLP and I are probably two of the oldest blogs on the block and Genghis' hits stand at around 460,636 while mine is at 342,718 (remember what I said about the site meter thing).

You getting the picture here folks...

Drinking Liberally in New Milford goes into more detail...

As outstanding as ctblogger's numbers are, they are still dwarfed by the Family Institute of Connecticut's claimed 350,000 hits per month. Alexa rates connecticutBLOG a very respectable 1,410,658.

Traffic Rank for connecticutblog.blogspot.com: 1,410,658

Considering the millions of Blogs out there that is a very good number ESPECIALLY for a political blog. Not quite up there with the dailyKos (Ranked 1,764) but an awesome ranking all things considered. It lead me to wonder where Alexa would have the FIC Blog ranked...

Traffic Rank for ctfamily.org: 5,553,563

No! That can't be right? The FIC says they get 350,000 hits per month and connecticutBLOG has never had more than 80,000 on it's best month? How could ctblogger's Blog be higher ranked for traffic ranking than the FIC's Blog?

Unless the FIC is lying about their traffic...

Go ahead and look at the comparison of these two sites traffic at Alexa.

Those really high peaks in blue are connecticutBLOG on their best days... Reaching 80,ooo hits AND 100,000 page views in the month of August. Again WOW! As for the really tiny bumps in red... Those are the supposed 350,000 hits per month that are claimed bye the FIC.

Looking at those numbers compared to ctbloggers it is easy to see that it is impossible for the FIC website to have 350,000 hits per month when their ranking is so low and, even on the FIC's best days, they don't even get as many pageviews as connecticutBLOG.

Little wonder why the FIC doesn't have a viewable sitemeter on their website, huh?

Little wonder? Lets not go there.

Here's the breakdown of the page views from ConnecticutBLOG and FIC via Alexa.

(NOTE: page views is a bit different than hits but in any case, if FIC gets 350,000 hits a month, their page views should be at least 350,000).


(click image to enlarge)

Here's a look at FIC versus all the other blogs I mentioned.


(click image to enlarge)
Now here's the kicker. I didn't even bring up the most popular site during the primary that killed just about everyone in Connecitcut...LamontBlog. Oh hell, for shits and giggles, lets put up those stats also.



Now, Lamontblog received as of today, 528,232 hits and again, this was probably the most viewed blog in CT.

Now, I don't really care much about this, I just think the whole notion that these guys received 350,000 hits IN A MONTH is a bit funny but hell, these guys call Genghis site "lefty" which is funny in itself.

...oh, oh, CTLauryn is crying...no more fun for daddy. Wanna revise that 350,000 claim guys?

(major hat tip to ConnecticutMan1 for the heads up. I need to drink liberally with you someday soon).

Oh God, please just let the girl be hungry. I can't take another dirty diaper at 3:00 in the morning...

UPDATE Oh man, these guys just don't get it. These guys are opening up a can of worms and I don't think they know how big of a hole they're making for themselves.

Are they aware that they're messing around with the big boys? FIC, I appeal to you to stop before you embarrass yourselves even more.