The following numbers come from Quantcast and my own playing with the numbers:
Page views: I get 271,667 page views a month. That comes to 8,907 a day or 3.26 million a year. WordPress reports higher numbers but they are probably just more current.
Visitors: Some people see more than one page, so if you break it down by visitors, it comes to 63,559 visitors a month. On average they look at 4.27 pages (which seems high – I would only expect like 1.2). Of these 1% come every day, 32% come more than once a month, the rest once a month or less.
My visitors are from:
- 66.7% America, of which:
- 11.1% California
- 9.1% New York
- 7.5% Texas
- 5.6% Florida
- 4.9% Georgia
- other states even less
- 6.9% Britain
- 4.8% Canada
- 1.43% Australia
- 1.35% India
- 1.09% Germany
- 17.7% all other countries
Among Americans:
- 63% Caucasian
- 18% African American
- 3% Asian
- 9% Hispanic
- 2% Other
These two sets of numbers are almost like who is on the Internet in general, so they are not very interesting. But if you weight the numbers against who is on the Internet, you get a very different picture:
By country:
- 23.51 Liberia
- 22.01 Gambia
- 20.59 Sierra Leone
- 18.34 Malawi
- 13.15 Uganda
- 12.17 Tanzania
- 11.76 Kenya
- 11.44 Bahamas
- 11.29 Zambia
- 11.24 Nigeria
That means a person in Nigeria is 11.24 times more likely to visit my blog than you would expect by mere chance. The top 30 are all African and West Indian countries, mainly English-speaking ones.
If you weight American states in the same way, you get this:
- 2.31 DC
- 1.69 Maryland
- 1.62 Georgia
- 1.36 Mississippi
- 1.35 New York
- 1.23 Alabama
- 1.21 North Carolina
- 1.18 Louisiana
- 1.14 South Carolina
- 1.09 New Jersey
The Black Belt, inotherwords.
If you weight American visitors by race:
- 2.27 African American
- 1.55 Other
- 1.21 Hispanic
- 0.84 Caucasian
- 0.71 Asian
Which means blacks are more than twice as likely to visit this blog than you would expect from mere chance, while whites are 16% less likely. But because so many people online are white, they still account for 63% of my American visitors.
By sex:
- 1.11 male
- 0.88 female
By age:
- 0.04: ages 3 to 12
- 0.40: ages 13 to 17
- 1.22: ages 18 to 34
- 1.51: ages 35 to 49
- 0.79: over age 50
By income:
- 1.49: $0 to $30,000
- 1.15: $30,000 to $60,000
- 0.81: $60,000 to $100,000
- 0.67: over $100,000
The median household income in 2007 was $50,223.
Quantcast helpfully points out: “This site attracts a less affluent audience.”
So among Americans this blog appeals most to middle-aged black men in Washington, DC who make less than $30,000 – not that other people do not like it too!
What about commenters? They make up about 1% of all visitors. Taking a random sample of 20 commenters from the past few days I get this:
- 50% American
- 25% British
- 10% Canadian
- 5% Portuguese
- 5% Brazil
- 5% Serbian
By race:
- 65% black
- 15% white
- 15% unknown
- 5% Asian
One of the unknowns said she was a black woman but I am not so sure. Going just by the knowns we get:
- 77% black
- 18% white
- 6% Asian
Commenters seem to be blacker, more female, more middle-class and less American than the lurkers. That, I think, comes from the nature of the posts that get commented on most: those about race, beauty and interracial dating. The pages that get the most hits, on the other hand, are about beautiful black women. A post on Toccara Jones, for example, gets vastly more hits than a post like “race is social”.
See also:
- The top posts of 2009
- Who likes my blog most – about which sort of countries my blog appeals to most. From May 2008
- Blogs you might like
- blackosphere
- Some numbers on Black Americans
Was there a recent poll? Where are you getting the info on race, age, sex, income and all that?
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How were you able to find the race of visitors?
Also someone can be commenting because they live in one country but are really from anyother(example: me)
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This looks really interesting, but I am also curious about data such as age and income. How did you get it?
Not to mention 5% Serbian commenters are the same person- me.
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how’d you get this information aba? You didn’t ask me any questions…
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i see you got maryland up there…
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Hmm, seems like a shoddy way for them to compile race statistics. It might work if it’s a general interest website, but for sites that talk about certain issues not as much so.
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I agree with Tulio. Funky way for Quantcast to compile statistics.
I’m totally curious now: how does Quantcast work?
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So, according to this data, whites are not particularly interested in this blog (even though there are plenty of stereotypically “white” subjects: Ancient Greece, history of science).
But ok, if we take a look at two main themes: racism and (thick) black women, it looks like whites are not interested in those either. Which is a shame. Black women are beautiful and for some reason I thought white people like to at least look at the pictures, if racism stops them from doing anything more productive in real life. Racism, on the other hand, is a really important subject that should concern everybody. This blog doesn’t bash white people, author presents ideas in clear, as-much-as-objective-as-possible manner (much more objective than “female beauty” posts), and yet, there are only a few white commenters. At the moment, I think (correct me if I’m wrong), there are only a few whites, and most of them don’t live in America.
How I found this blog
A google search on white men and black women. The article was really well written- like a personal experience brilliantly put into words. That’s why I thought the blog owner was a white man married to a black woman.
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Mira, mention racism around most white people and all bets are off. They don’t want to discuss it, especially if it is considering that people of their color might be racist. It doesn’t even matter if you make it clear that you’re not talking about them specifically, they are very uncomfortable with the discussion. That’s most likely why they’re less likely to visit/comment on this blog. That’s also why I love my SO — we discuss race and racism, honestly, all the time. He’s willing to engage certain topics even when they hit close to home.
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It is important to discuss important things, especially if they hit close to home. Hiding them and pretending they don’t exist won’t make them disappear.
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Tulio:
That was just my guess of how they do it, but I do not see how else they could do it. They might have better data than what you see like in the Wikipedia. I know the government provides marketers the census data broken down by zip code, for example. I would be surprised if it was not broken down by IP address by now.
But even so, it is still a probablistic argument. Like I do get hits from Silver Spring but based on the other numbers there is a more than 28% chance that it is coming from a black person, for example.
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Mira, try telling them that. No really… try telling them that. They seem to be more open to the conversation when it is broached by someone who is white.
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I would, but I don’t know many white American people, and I doubt they would listen to me (or accept me as an equal… or white for that matter). On the other hand, racism in my country is different than American one, and since no black people live here, it’s not one of the main problems people discuss or even think about. There are other -isms we need to get rid of first.
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Ahhh, I wasn’t aware you weren’t American. I should’ve suspected that though; you strike me as being much more open-minded about other ethnicities in general than most of the white Americans I meet. Where are you from and where do you live?
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Oh, never mind, I just visited your blog. Nice blog you have there!
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I don’t wish to come across a ‘doom merchant’ but these stats are going to be used against us at some point in the future he he he he he he he
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Dude, don’t take that Nigerian connection too seriously. Nigeria is on the top of almost every website’s visitors list.
I’ll give you one guess as to why. 😀
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Why??
Anything to do with fraud – Forgive the stereotype??
Only joking ere
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Everything.
There actually ARE a lot of mail fraud schemes being runb out of Nigeria – at least virtually.
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@ Natasha W
I live in Serbia. Thanks for visiting my blog! 🙂
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Mira,
I didn’t know you were from Serbia! Shtyma! (I’m sure that’s spelled horribly wrong, but that’s one of 3 Serbian phrases I know–my tutee taught me :-))
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What are the other phrases?
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abagond said:
“For example, if an IP address comes from Silver Spring, Maryland, that would count as 0.47 hits from a white person and 0.28 hits from a black person because Silver Spring is 47% white and 28% black.”
Let’s not forget that not everyone’s ip address is actually where they live. Mine has changed from Connecticut to Massachusetts to Houston, TX. So I’m sure that their method is far from 100 %.
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Hey Aba,
I was curious about how you got all those infos, then I saw previous comments with the same questions I had.
This site came to my screen when I was searching for black on black racism (i think) then i saw your post about shadism/colourism, and liked it.
Since I’m from Portugal, statistics would say that I was most likely to be caucasian, because Portugal have about 2,5 % non-caucasians, although i’m not.
About those 5% portuguese , it refers to quantity of comments even if they are from the same person? Or it means there were 3 other commenters from here?
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I took a random sample of 20 commenters. The more you comment, the more likely you will be in the sample. Each commenter counts as 5% of the total, so that 5% Portuguese is you! I knew you were in Portugal from your IP address.
Thanks for telling me how found this blog (and thanks to Mira too who also told me). That is always interesting, at least to me.
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I know “fooksa” (I’m sorry for the horrible spellings, but I’ve only learned by hearing) lol, and “Ca ku say toosovitch?” “Moye Ime ye Jasmin.” (I tried to spell things phonetically.) And that’s as far as my Serbian goes (I actually learned the last 2 during a training exercise when a lady taught us Bosnian phrases.)
My IP address changes as well; I live and go to school in 2 different states.
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@Abagond
I am really glad I found your blog. It helps me learn new things and understand American culture better. Also, I really like your writing style. Maybe you could do a survey for your regular visitors (commenters), and we could tell you exactly what we like about this blog and how we found it? Yes, there are “about”, “contact” and “suggestions” pages, but for some reason I don’t see them as the right places to talk about it. Sure, I could write you an email, but the things I’d like to say are for everyone to see, I guess.
@Jasmin
This is exciting! (Well, at least to me). The last one is “My name is Jasmin” (Moje ime je Jasmin is correct spelling) The first one, you wrote yesterday, I guess it’s “what’s up”, but I can’t recognize next to last. But I must warn you about “fuksa” word- where did you hear it? It’s not a polite one, though I must warn you people here swear a lot, so I am not quite sure if someone meant that as an insult or not.
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@ abagond
“I took a random sample of 20 commenters. The more you comment, the more likely you will be in the sample. Each commenter counts as 5% of the total, so that 5% Portuguese is you! I knew you were in Portugal from your IP address.”
Ok..I didn’t pay atention, thought you said 1/5 of those 20 commenters were from here. Then it should be 20% if i’ve read carefully… Anyways I messed up with that math, sorry.
(*^_^*)
@Mira
“Maybe you could do a survey for your regular visitors (commenters), and we could tell you exactly what we like about this blog and how we found it?”
Nice suggestion Mira.
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In other words you are pretty dang popular Aba!
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That is amazing..
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@Mira:
Good idea!
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“A google search on white men and black women. The article was really well written- like a personal experience brilliantly put into words. That’s why I thought the blog owner was a white man married to a black woman.”
yeah for awhile i thought abagond was white when i first found this blog and didn’t comment. i got confused at the beauty list cuz he did have two ww at the top and then a bunch of black women. I don’t know what it was that caused me to decide that I was pretty much 99.9% certain that abagond was a black man. Oh yeah my confirmation for sure came when he said he got profiled by the police several times before. I had suspected he was black because he wrote so much about the “white gaze,” and racism and slavery and he seemed like he understood it a little to well to be white (no offense white folks) but somethings you gotta experience to know what its like. Anyway…yeah i’m certain abagond is black. He’s my prototype for hubby. 😉 Educated, well-spoken, religious and bilingual, I think. (I’m sorry abagond I read this blog too much)
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I got to this site through a google search on almond eyes or something. I don’t know why I was searching it, but I was. the first post i ever encounted from this blog was “the eyes of black women,” post. He wrote about black women’s eyes with a sense of longing to me. Like he was somewhat around black women and spent time thinking about them, but hadn’t been able to realize his desire yet or something. It was written with a sense of unfamiliarity. Like someone on the outside looking in. That is why I thought Abagond was white at first.
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then the blog took a bitter turn for awhile. I sensed a bit of frustration with bw on this blog for awhile. don’t know if that was true, but that was the way the posts felt. i was waiting for a post to come up with “my frustration with black women,” or something for awhile. Anyway, that’s my abagond blog summary/story of how i encountered the blog. You can quote me all you want, abagond. JK. your next post should be dedicated to your commenters…and you can put a special section in it for me. jk lol
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It took me a while to realize Abagond was black (sorry, Abagond). Why? He wrote so many articles about white people (white gaze, white pride, guilt, white preference in women), that I seriously though he’s white. After all, he did seem to know white community pretty well. Sure, there are many posts about female beauty (“I like thick black women” posts), but the style here is clearly subjective, so I thought he was a white guy attracted to black women.
What I find interesting here is the fact all those posts about white people didn’t make me realize he was black. I could imagine a white man married to a black woman, who is so fed up with racism and stuff his people (whites) do to others.
I realized he was black only after I read a post (don’t remember which one) where he clearly states: “I am a black man”.
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Actually I think he is mixed (black and white/very close to white) but forced to be just black by US’s One Drop rule, because there are lots of posts about mixed people and when he talks about them it seems somehow very personal and deep…
It looks like he’s much more proud about his black heritage;
Am I right Aba?
@Peanut
“… i got confused at the beauty list cuz he did have two ww at the top and then a bunch of black women.”
Considering Oedipus complex I think those two white women reminds him his mother.
That’s part of the reason I think you’re mixed and have a white/close to white mother.
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I’m risking to sound disrespectful, so feel free to delete my comment if it’s offensive. But I remember one post about Abagond’s mother (who believed in colour blind child rearing). How common is for a black woman to share same views?
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abagond, didn’t you say you looked like maxwell in one post? I just think he’s a black man who likes sophia loren and elizabeth taylor because they have that classic appeal. i have to admit at first i found it a little funny that he said he liked bw so much and then only had them at 3rd place on his beauty hierarchy, which is why i felt he was a white man who desired bw, but still held white women on a pedestal sorta.
But that’s just his tase and I have to admit that I do find both women to be stunning and there’s something about classic hollywood mystique that is just so alluring.
Just I love the classic hollywood look and unfortunately at that time outside Lena Horne, Dorothy Dandridge, Ruby Dee, Dihanne Caroll not many bw who were attractive were welcomed into hollywood at that time.
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Mira,
I think I was trying to say “What is your name?” with the last one? (I remember how to pronounce it, but not what it means.) And yes, the first one was “What’s up?”, albeit with bad spelling.
I know a “fuksa” is a bad word, though the person who told me about it didn’t call me it.
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lol I bet a lot of Britain’s 6.9% is me, But I am not native of the uk.
came here to live with my husband.
I agree its a kind of weird way of getting these data, the ethinicity part is maybe not accurate.
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I must take credit, I suggested this post. I’m sure a lot of the UK views come from me!! I visit everyday.
I love your blog Aba!! **blows air kiss**
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I forgot to comment here…
@Jasmin
Mira,
I think I was trying to say “What is your name?” with the last one? (I remember how to pronounce it, but not what it means.) And yes, the first one was “What’s up?”, albeit with bad spelling.
Yes, that’s “what is your name?” (Kako se ti zoveš? in original).
You seem to be talented for languages, that is a great gift. 🙂
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Have these numbers remained constant or have they changed over the last six years ?
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