Introduction

We'll often rattle off various metrics quite casually in conversation, but it's easy to forget that others (such as your clients!) might not know whether these are big numbers or small ones. For example: "We've just published a guest post on a site with Domain mozTrust 5.67. Mr_Gadget mentioned it to his 64 thousand followers, and it managed to get over 1,000 Diggs."

This post should be useful to anyone who needs to orientate themselves around such numbers. The Website Benchmarks section shows metrics for around half a dozen sites from ten different niches (based on the list originally prepared for comparing SEOMoz Trifecta data.) This is followed by Social Media Benchmarks, to give an idea of the impact and influence of votes and people on three popular social websites.

Links and Traffic: Website Benchmarks

This section uses three particular metrics:

  • Domain mozRank: the strength of a website, based on the sites & pages that link to it,
  • Domain mozTrust: the trustworthiness of a website, based on links from trusted sites & pages,
  • Unique Vistors: Compete.com's estimate of the number of monthly unique visitors to a site.

 

N.B.: The 'moz' metrics use data exposed by SEOMoz's Linkscape, and are on an exponential scale from 0 - 10. Data collected in 2006 suggested that the no visitor metric - Compete included - could be used to precisely estimate unique visitors to blogs at the time.

Arts & Entertainment
Website DmR DmT Visitors
AllMusic 7.05 7.26 545,038
Art.com 6.73 6.58 1,595,173
Art Cyclopedia 6.41 6.94 244,849
AMC Theatres 6.23 6.60 1,294,011
Art.net 5.73 6.32 17,122
Shihad.com 5.55 5.65 1,170
The Official Whitlams Website 4.77 4.95 822
EntertainmentTonight.org 2.87 3.01 401

Business
Website DmR DmT Visitors
Business.gov 6.87 7.37 185,142
Business.com 6.47 6.75 4,882,836
Prudential 6.40 6.86 1,028,829
Kansas Insurance Commissioner 5.71 6.18 8,826
WorldBiz.com 5.48 6.03 4,033
HRM Business Practices and Notes 3.89 4.11 114
Chevron Corporate Solutions 2.76 3.01 n/a

Economy & Politics
Website DmR DmT Visitors
The White House 7.90 8.55 1,976,338
Barak Obama 6.93 7.38 1,180,883
The Democratic Party 6.49 7.01 261,288
Republican National Committee 6.22 7.13 27,592
Democrats.com | The Aggressive Progressives 5.71 6.36 131,764
Iowa Democratic Party 5.15 5.67 1,009
Republican Party of America 4.32 4.70 2,873
Vote Brian Sayrs 3.11 3.74 123

Health
Website DmR DmT Visitors
WebMD 7.35 7.66 19,871,120
HealthWorld Online 6.18 6.73 88,180
Health.com 6.08 6.41 1,795,763
Men's Health Network 5.71 6.28 6,817
Healthy Child 5.14 5.25 7,409
Healthy Living Natural Foods 4.41 4.79 1,199
All American Healthcare 2.76 3.00 n/a

Home & Housing
Website DmR DmT Visitors
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 7.62 8.07 1,716,602
HGTV 6.83 7.05 3,334,973
RealEstate.com 6.55 6.48 527,147
HousingMaps 6.08 6.70 19,219
Get Decorating 5.02 5.32 53,819
Eastern Corner 4.77 4.81 4,722
RentSpeed.com 4.73 4.68 74,571
WeBuyHouses.info 2.76 3.00 n/a

News & Media
Website DmR DmT Visitors
CNN 7.40 7.72 10,055,985
Anchorage Daily News 6.57 7.11 183,065
News-Record 6.17 6.68 207,799
Happy News 5.57 6.15 120,209
News Directory 5.56 6.24 1,610
Napier Mail 3.60 3.77 434
Kingsburg Recorder 2.35 4.78 4,011

People & Society
Website DmR DmT Visitors
U.S. Department of Education 7.63 8.33 6,270,175
ConsumerReports 6.94 7.24 4,339,086
Consumer Web Watch 5.97 6.31 12,213
Consumerist 5.63 5.91 796,933
South Carolina Department of Education 5.44 6.12 4,467
No Nonsense Self Defense 4.86 5.34 18,278
Inner Strength 3.71 4.32 1,055
Acqua Beauty Bar 3.55 3.84 1,383

Science

Sports & Recreation
Website DmR DmT Visitors
Fox Sports 7.18 7.29 6,294,958
Official Site of Major League Baseball 6.57 6.84 9,969,301
FIBA - Home of International Basketball 6.16 6.23 8,369
NCAA Football 5.44 5.90 232,497
Sports Illustrated for Kids 5.09 5.48 166,599
North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance 4.33 4.43 3,057
Swimwatch 3.03 3.19 1,138

Technology
Website DmR DmT Visitors
Apple 8.84 9.33 21,407,512
Google Mail 7.22 7.14 9,336,542
Blackberry 7.10 7.30 2,551,692
Government of India, Department of Information Technology 5.82 6.47 1,862
Internet History 5.72 6.43 20,749
The Society for the History of Technology 4.98 6.32 688
The Loop 3.71 5.58 17,332

Social Media Benchmarks

Digg

Digg is a well established social media site. After a user submits a link (refered to as a story) other users 'Digg' the story if they like it. Stories with a greater number of Diggs are more likely to be promoted to the site's front page, be seen by more visitors, and receive more traffic. Users can also 'bury' stories that are off-topic or duplicate. Read more at How Digg Works.

# of Diggs Likely success Example Story
1+ Little or no exposure Example
10+ A little exposure Example
100+ Mild exposure, moderate success Example
500+ Reasonable exposure, good success - likely to have been promoted with the submission category Example
1,000+ Good exposure & likely to be promoted to the front page, successful content Example
2,000+ Lots of exposure, highly successful Example
10,000+ The very top echelon of articles, extremely successful content. Example

Reddit

Reddit is a newer, but increasingly popular social media site. Users can up-vote and down-vote submitted links to give a link a total number of 'points'. The most popular stories are promoted to the front page of their category, or the site. Read more at the Reddit FAQ.

Points Likely success Example Link
1+ Little or no exposure Example
10+ A little exposure, may send some visits page Example
100+ Good exposure & likely to be promoted to the category's front page, sends a moderate amount of traffic Example
500+ Very good exposure & likely to be promoted to the front page Example
1,000+ Excellent exposure, highly successful & will send considerable traffic to the page Example
3,000+ Amongst the top links on the site, extremely popular and widely viewed Example

Twitter

Twitter is a networking website where individuals share their 'statuses', and follow others doing the same. The most fundamental metric available on the site is the number of 'followers' a user has - and provides a reasonable indication of their popularlity and influence. Read more at Twitter's Getting Started page.

Followers Typical behaviour Example User
1+ Very new, or dormant user Example
10+ Likely to be using the site for social purposes, has influence within a close circle of friends Example
100+ Connecting with a modest number of people, has influence amongst a wide circle of friends or industry colleagues Example
1,000+ Fairly well known within their industry, and likely to have influence well beyond those they know personally Example
10,000+ Very well known with their industry or niche; likely to have some off-line awareness Example
100,000+ Popular amongst a wide variety of users; likely to very influential and be widely 'retweeted' Example
1,000,000+ Amongst the top 200 users and very influential within the site; almost certainly a genuine off-line celebrity Example