Ubuntu’s Audience Defined August 21, 2007
Posted by Carthik in ubuntu.trackback
I read the impressive growth and traffic details for WordPress.com at Matt’s Blog. WordPress has always been very dear to me, and it makes me happy to note that the WordPress team grows from strength to strength, without compromising on values, and while keeping things open, almost entirely so.
However, the stat freak in me got another tool, and the results are surprising!
I did not have any clue that the number of 45-65 year olds that visit my site are above the average numbers for the internet by around 25-45%. Also, most of my visitors are as poor as I am, with an income of less than $30K a year. That is surprising when you realize that college graduates outnumber any other kind of visitor, based on education. Finally, the male-female disparity is not too high – I get 25% less female visitors, and 25% more male visitors than the average site. Here’s my quantcast report.
Now, like me, you must be thinking, what about ubuntu.com?
Maybe Canonical should sign up for the quantcast setup like WordPress.com and then we could start fixing the problem where, right now, my blog seems to get more visitors than ubuntu.com. Clearly, quantcast is orders-of-magnitude off with the numbers. Let’s hope the percentages are right when it comes to the demographics. If they are, then then, again, Ubuntu seems to attract a middle-aged, may I say “mature” crowd. Ubuntu.com attracts more Asian, Hispanics and “Others” than the average website out there. Also, “linux drivers” seems to be leading the charge of visitors to Ubuntu.com. It would be good to put something related to drivers – perhaps an article with links peppered throughout to the various compatibility resources and hardware profiling tools somewhere on the front page of help.ubuntu.com which seems to be quite a popular destination. Of course, if I had a say in how Ubuntu’s websites worked, I would first ensure that the help pages show up where they belong on Google searches. Somehow, I can’t seem to end up at the Ubuntu help wiki after a web search. I suspect the wiki software’s intricacies, and the “https://” (now why does a help wiki have to be served over https?), are partly responsible for that issue. You get the idea that shipit must be doing something right, since it seems to be quite a popular destination. Also, OpenSuse, FreeSpire and Damn Small Linux seem to the other Linux distributions that are popular among those that visit the Ubuntu website. Scanning the quantcast results might help lots of folks involved with planning, developing and marketing Ubuntu – whether it is deciding what/who to focus on, or finding out how meta-plans are working out.
That was interesting.
> Also, OpenSuse, FreeSpire and Damn Small Linux seem to the other
> Linux distributions that are popular among those that visit the Ubuntu
> website.
You’re guessing here… “Similar audiences” just means that the statistics of ubuntu.com and the mentioned sites are fairly similar, not that the same people are visiting these sites.
Ah, I see. Thanks for the heads up.
Launchpad is served (almost) entirely over HTTPS, but we have no trouble showing up high in Google searches.
I think one factor in help.ubuntu.com’s poor showing is its poor titles and headings.
Another is that it’s a bit staid and unexciting. It would benefit from people who have the time and skills to generate artwork, to maintain a mini-linklog on the front page of how-to articles published elsewhere, to implement a kick-ass search function, and other ways of making it a site that people want to link to.
As a forty-something, I must concur
When I get rich I will read your blog anyway
mpt, Wow! you made your point. I guess, it has to do with the title, headings, and the generated html – some of which are limitations of the tool and some are related to the folks that use it.
The CamelCase titles don’t help, for sure.
I still don’t see why the pages have to be served over https though.
[...] Ubuntu’s Audience Defined I read the impressive growth and traffic details for WordPress.com at Matt’s Blog. WordPress has always been very […] [...]
A professional SEO provider like Zac Johnson, Ryan Shamus, Tim Schroeder, Shoemoney or John Chow could provide those services. Otherwise, you take the risk of hit or miss.
What’s most interesting is that, when you add 45 to 65+ age groups, that’s the vast majority. I’m in that group, too.
Oops, I guess you already m,ade that point. Sorry… should have read mosr carefully.
Your blog is very unlike Launchpad. This blog presents ideas and very direct solutions to problems. In contrast, Launchpad is a rather unkept collection of problem solving (some very good and direct, while others are typical of tedious asynchronous communications). Both serve different purposes. Reading your blog is fun. Launchpad is work.
Take a look at Alexa Internet: http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/ubuntu.com?site0=ubuntu.com&site1=ubuntuforums.org&site2=launchpad.net&site3=ubuntu.wordpress.com&y=r&z=3&h=300&w=610&range=6m&size=Medium
Where do you add the Quantcast code to get it to work? I tried putting it in a text widget but it didn’t.
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I would actually agree with the “older” demographic. I thought it was younger at first, but I went to an Ubuntu Hardy Heron Release Party in Phoenix, and it was nearly all older men!