Referral Stats
18We've got a new stats module we're trying out that shows how people are arriving at meh.com each day.
We've really enjoyed pouring over our log files and exploring all the ways people are finding out about Meh. We thought some of you would like seeing this data too. And we haven't ever seen another store share this sort of stat, in real time.
Maybe this will encourage some people to checkout some of these sites. Seems reasonable that if you like visiting Meh, you'll probably like a site that decided to link to us. Maybe you'll find some good external discussion about our deals at Meh. Maybe you can toss around an up-vote or a like or a star or whatever-the-kids-do-these-days in Meh's favor on these other sites. Maybe we'll even start seeing more and more sites linking to us.
Mostly, though, we just like stats.
- 12 comments, 29 replies
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Now I kinda want to restart my old blog so I can see if I can show up on the list.
I had no idea that Meh was getting a significant number of inbound external links, aside from the ones from the official Facebook and Twitter accounts. Really, it never crossed my mind.
What I'm interested in seeing is if certain deals get a large number of links from specific communities. For example, if you sell those drones again, maybe a site about drones will notice and link to Meh on that day.
@lljk Cool thing is that it works on past deals all the way back to launch day. Here's a previous drone deal that had some smaller drone sites link to us but didn't quite make the top 10 we're displaying: https://meh.com/deals/dji-phantom-1
waiting for the first questionable/porn site to be on the list of referrals
@BillLehecka Hey you can make that happen you know...
That's really cool that over 90% of us came here by typing in meh.com
Any chance we could get some stats since Meh launched? I'd be curious overall how many of us typed meh.com vs referrals.
@luvche21 mentioned this up above, but these stats work all the way back to launch day. https://meh.com/deals/irobot-roomba-560
@shawn Cool! What about an average since launch day?
@luvche21 i very seldom actually "type" it.
@luvche21 ... Don't people bookmark any more..?
@unkabob I have rarely ever bookmarked anything -- everything I use on a daily basis I only have to type the first letter or two and hit enter. I'm much more of a typer than a clicker.
@unkabob Funny thing about bookmarks. Many of my friends bookmark everything. If they go to cnn, they will bookmark it. The next time they need to go to that site, I see them struggling for 20 -30 seconds going through the 50 pages of bookmarks to find cnn when they could just take 2 seconds to type it in.
Since I go to Meh throughout the day, I have meh and meh/forums on my bookmark toolbar. I used it that way to refresh the page just before and after midnight because earlier clicking on the Meh logo played a song instead of refreshing (now has been fixed).
@luvche21 ... Yeah, well I'm a one finger (pecker) but I really don't bookmark, instead I use firefox speed dial.. just paste the link, create a pic then later find the pic and click once..
@cengland0 ... Sounds logical.
@cengland0 Moot point, but double-clicking the logo refreshed the page.
I take @luvche21's approach, for regularly visited sites. Only ever bookmark far more specific pages that I think I'll need down the line.
@brhfl Like recipes or articles I want to refer back to. I should probably bookmark more for those things since I generally put those links in Google Keep since I can access that on any device.
Agreed, stats are interesting. I should have stayed current on my computer skills. I would like a job that creates and reports this kind of information.
I was wondering recently what kind of fluctuation you see in VMP membership. Is it a certain percent of membership in general or do many people cancel and renew on next purchase? Do many people just pay shipping and not want the recurring charge?
Weird thoughts that wander through as I read some of the threads.
@speediedelivery It is my belief that only @unixrab wants to pay for shipping every time. Without knowing the stats, it seems logical for a normal person to pay for VMP membership on their first purchase and get 30 days of free shipping for anything else they may or may not buy. It would be neat to see a statistical confirmation of that though.
@cengland0 I only want to pay for shipping until it becomes more beneficial to NOT pay for shipping (besides the initial $5 I pay for shipping each month as a VMP)
Cool you're sharing this info. I've noticed you folks showing up on Dealnews fairly often as well. Can't imagine other sites sharing this info right on their front page. Also trying to figure out why they wouldn't share it - what's the downside?
@RedOak ... Probably time as most operate on a skeleton crew with specific duties.. Only meh has the foresight to out do 'em all, I mean.. Transparency? The g'ment don't even go THAT far.
Whadda 'bout us what come from the bathroom..?
@shawn, can you remind me how to look at a specific date? I'm curious about the referral stats on the Daring Fireball days.
@SSteve I don't how by date but what I have been doing to look is going to the forums, click the community icon (upper right) and choose "Deals" then click the deal you are interested in then click the deal at the very top, that should take you to the original write up and you can see the referrals at the bottom.
@SSteve @thismyusername I frequently go to mehstalker.com and they are in order by date. There are some basic stats on that site too.
The "Date Added" field will appear if you click on "View All"
@cengland0 Thanks. That worked.
@SSteve Clicking on the calendar meh face or space if you did not click that day works too.
@speediedelivery Yes, but not for finding something in November 2014. I used to know how to enter a date in the URL and even told other people about it in the forums. But I've forgotten and can't find a post where I explained it.
@SSteve Go to your existing Meh calendar, copy the link for some past date, paste in URL, change the date part to what is desired, and enter
@darksaber99999 Crap! I thought for sure I looked at that last night and it wasn't a date. Oh, I know what happened. I was on my iPad and clicked on the day in the calendar then looked at the URL. By that point, it's converted to the URL based on the product name. I didn't touch and hold the calendar link to see the URL that way. Duh!
Some other sites and most commerce sites rely on flows of traffic from key, protected sources. Advertising your sources of traffic would cause those sources to be more known as strategically valuable (and if you were paying for traffic your cost might increase)
Sharing data on a per event basis helps communicate our goals and shifts Meh to be a platform of sorts.
Great work @shawn and team - I love the execution of this.
@snapster sign of a classy boss - public thanks to team members. Nicely done.
@snapster there's something clean and minimalist about a site that does not need to pay for traffic.
meh!
Wouldn't anonymous (cookie-less) linking from another site be tantamount to typing in Meh.com from the server perspective? Not saying there's a lot of that going on, but more curious than anything else.
@ACraigL Yep. This is "no referral" essentially.
I have never heard of Kinja before today...
@juststephen cool - this is often a tool for discovery internally at Mediocre. Much of my personal web discovery came from checking out inbound logs back at Woot too. Fun to think that use may broaden.
@juststephen you have never heard of gawker media (gizmodo, lifehacker, kotaku, etc)? :D
@thismyusername Gizmodo and lifehacker, but I don't frequent either
@juststephen they are sorta infamous (well gawker's gossip sites are anyway).