
Reddit Traffic has Exploded in 12 Months - vaf
http://soshable.com/reddit-traffic-has-exploded-in-12-months/
======
raldi
Speaking as a former reddit admin who had direct access to the server logs
(and "wc -l"): Quantcast (and Alexa, and Comscore, and all the others) are
terrible at estimating traffic. They make wildly inaccurate guesses using low-
quality source data and all the ad execs just gobble up their results as if
they're fresh off God's own LaserJet. It's very frustrating to watch.

The most accurate results are visible at Google AdPlanner, because it's
reporting actual Google Analytics data from a bug embedded on every reddit
page:

[https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en...](https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en#siteDetails?identifier=reddit.com&lp=true)

Google Trends is also pretty good -- again, because they have access to
_actual, real_ search data which they're presenting raw and unvarnished:

[http://www.google.com/trends?q=reddit%2C+digg&ctab=0&...](http://www.google.com/trends?q=reddit%2C+digg&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0)

To my eye, the hockey stick begins in Q1 2010, well before the mid-Q3 spike
when Digg v4 was launched.

TLDR: Digg's implosion may have accelerated Reddit's traffic growth, but it
was already doubling yearly, a trend which goes back to the site's launch in
2005.

~~~
tomerico
Thanks for this site, I never knew Google publish analytic traffic and their
estimated traffic.

Something interesting I have noticed, if you are looking at Hacker News'
traffic data, there seems to be a steep decline somewhere around April [1]. I
wonder what whether it is correct, and whether there was a fundamental change
in this site / ycombinator around that time.

[1]
[https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en...](https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en#siteDetails?uid=d%252Bnews.ycombinator.com&geo=001&lp=false)

~~~
sc00ter
(Sarcasm noted :-) For the uninitiated, this was around the time comment
scores were hidden. Only PG knows whether this had any real effect on traffic;
and even if so, whether that's a good or bad thing is subjective (less poor
quality traffic / comments is good, and since HN is not directly commercial,
lower traffic is not necessarily a bad thing).

Loss of value to everyone else from lack of comment scores is another question
entirely...

~~~
shinratdr
If we have that much evidence that having no visible comment scores reduces
poor quality traffic, I think I may have just switched sides in that
particular debate.

I'm not saying that is the case, but it could be a very interesting
revelation.

------
dmix
The day I realized reddit wasn't the same anymore, was when I made a jest
about Youtube commenters only posting unintelligible comments in the main
/r/reddit.com subreddit.

I got tons downvotes and a confused reply saying "is there something wrong
with youtube that I dont get?"

Then I realized the people commenting on Reddit were the same ones posting the
comments on Youtube.

They weren't even aware of the stigma of Youtubes comments, which shows the
cultural shift on Reddit from tech-savvy to mainstream.

~~~
llambda
I stopped reading Reddit at the beginning of last year: there was a clear
shift in demographic that wasn't something I found to be positive. The
preference had seemed to become for short, trite, flippant comments that would
illicit a slew of puns. Increasingly the richness of content of submissions
had dried up. Of course I was told by my friends that I should just read
subreddits and ignore the garbage. But even then, the culture had changed. So
ultimately it wasn't for me. Needless to say, I'm hardly a loss to Reddit's
bottom-line in the scheme of things and they're probably better off in the
mainstream in that regard.

~~~
bh42222
I stopped reading reddit long before you stopped. Quite a bit later, I slowly
came back by being very selective about my subreddits. I think others might
have done the same, because I've definitely been able to create a reddit very
much like I remember it long before it got so popular. (Good god, does this
post make me sound like an uber-hipster, or what!)

~~~
maleadt
But you're right about the subreddits, and this is one of the more important
features which manages to keep acquainted users from leaving the site, even if
they are tired of the now 4chan-esque frontpage.

------
paganel
Unfortunately, reddit has started to hit new and new lows. See this recent
highly-voted post for example
([http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/jvhot/i_found_a_girl_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/jvhot/i_found_a_girl_on_flickr_who_has_169_images_of/)),
where they're making fun of a poor girl's badly photoshopped photos that she
dared to publish on Flickr.

I've been on reddit since its very beginnings, back when its being rewritten
in Python was causing huge discussions or when programming.reddit was still a
sub-domain. I've lived through the 2008 elections stealing the front page from
geeky-related articles, or when making fun at digg was actually considered
cool (back in 2009 or so). Anyway, I never thought that making fun and hurting
actual innocent people would really hit the front-page, I'm ashamed of having
supported this website for so long. There are still some pockets of common-
sense left, starting with TrueReddit which I think is more like an animal
preserve for those who can still remember how cool and exciting reddit used to
be. I'll also want to add /r/history to the list of sub-reddits worth
following.

~~~
georgieporgie
_TrueReddit_

Wow, thanks for that! It's like Reddit, but without all the memes,
manipulators, and obvious spammers trying to pump up their karma with reposts.
That's the first time in years that I've felt that I gained something in
exchange for my time.

~~~
bostonvaulter2
I'd also highly recommend r/depthhub

<http://www.reddit.com/r/depthhub>

Other more niche ones are good as well.

------
parfe
Too bad. The voting system isn't as robust as it needs to be for me to use the
site on a regular basis anymore. Too many of the top rated threads are jokes,
puns, or stupid questions.

Moderating by category made slashdot comments useful. In the user profile,
setting all "Funny" moderated comments to -5 eliminated all the "In Soviet
Russia" jokes. Repeated comments were marked redundant etc.

Reddit has become quite popular and as a result the comments have become less
interesting and more populist. While it's great for the staff to run a
successful site, the newfound popularity has pushed me away, and just as they
released the Gold accounts as well.

I'd pay for a gold account if it gave access to an advanced moderation system.
News.yc is still small enough and the community homogeneous enough that the
really stupid shit gets moderated out. People are strict enough around here
that the idiots leave quickly. Not having sub-sites helps as well to push away
the people primarily looking for lolcats.

~~~
blhack
Reddit still has a fantastic set of communities on it. Think of it more as a
_service_ , not one singular website.

Like usenet.

(These are some of the subs that I like, they might not be your thing, but
they're examples of solid communities)

<http://reddit.com/r/truereddit>

<http://reddit.com/r/longtext>

<http://reddit.com/r/depthhub>

<http://reddit.com/r/askscience>

<http://reddit.com/r/neuro>

<http://reddit.com/r/burningman>

<http://reddit.com/r/movies>

<http://reddit.com/r/linguistics>

<http://reddit.com/r/philosophy>

And if you're looking for pictures, there are the "SFW \"Porn\"" subs:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/earthporn+villageporn+cityporn+space...](http://www.reddit.com/r/earthporn+villageporn+cityporn+spaceporn+waterporn+animalporn+humanporn+botanicalporn+adrenalineporn+destructionporn+movieposterporn+albumartporn+machineporn+newsporn+geekporn+bookporn+mapporn+adporn)

Reddit certainly isn't dead. It's just maturing.

~~~
parfe
I understand that I can work to find subcommunities that havne't been
destroyed yet, but check out The top rated comment in the top rated post in
/r/Programming:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/juzl0/what_does...](http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/juzl0/what_does_1265_of_bugs_look_like/)

 _Extremely disappointmented this wasn't a picture of a dump truck full of
bees._

~~~
fudged71
It's no secret that the Programming subreddit has gone downhill in the past
couple years. Plus, when a post gets popular, it gains the attention of the
general audience, who often view /r/all.

Another good subreddit is /r/todayilearned

~~~
masklinn
> it gains the attention of the general audience, who often view /r/all.

It's not that they view /r/all, it's that they have not customized their front
page, so they get the default set of subreddits, which I believe is simply the
subreddits with the most members.

~~~
Sniffnoy
I think it's the subreddits with the most members, except that mods can set
their subreddits to not be on the default front page.

------
maurits
I deleted my account yesterday. As a community it has given me nothing back,
except pictures of funny cats (ok slight exaggeration)

It seems as if every single comment that hints to insight fulness, knowledge
or that comes accompanied with a (scientific) source is ridiculed or downvoted
into oblivion. And top comments increasingly are inside jokes. That is all ok,
but I am not putting energy in it anymore.

Compare that to HN, where I comment very little, yet nearly every interaction
sparked an email or two with people who do cool stuff.

Reddit commenters seems to take some pride that they are not as worse as their
cousins at 4chan or youtube. To me they seem to be the internet white noise,
and if they don't deviate into the tail, they will be fine. The usenet
comparison by blhack is spot on I feel, so new communities will spring to live
where others slip.

edit:typo

~~~
ohashi
If you got no value out of the place, I think you were doing it wrong. My city
(DC) has a thriving subreddit that meets up probably 2-3 times a week
officially to do things - zombie invasion simulations, drinking, board games,
go karting, etc. It's been a fantastic way to just get out and do stuff with
people. There is a whole subreddit dedicated to 'Barcraft' which brings
watching pro starcraft live to bars (like you would watch any other sport).
People are spending their time to put on these live events with help from
companies like Justin.tv/Twitch. Those are two examples that hit home close to
me, but I am sure you can find stuff for you as well, you just have to look
and engage with the proper communities.

~~~
maurits
You gave me a new idea. I have two hobbies, one is a niche, and its subredit
is dead in the water. The other is so broad its subredit suffers a bit from
the fun&games comments.

Which brings me to this. HN is a pretty nice community. What would happen if
we make it a subredit, /r/hn? Its a pretty cool place with a group of growing,
devoted followers. All is good. So one day, it gets promoted to the default
frontpage. How long before the lol cats outnumber the hackers?

~~~
ohashi
I suspect there is a large overlap as it is. What would be the point of /r/hn
when HN is functionally similar? As far as dead subreddits, they can be
revived, but it takes effort on someone's part - if you're serious contact the
current mod and ask.

------
narkee
>It’s not guaranteed that something of high quality will make it on Reddit,
but it’s absolutely guaranteed that something of low quality will be destroyed
there.

That's not true at all. There are tons of low quality posts. There's just such
a high turnover that you tend to forget some of the stuff that you
automatically skip or filter.

~~~
absconditus
Most of the submissions on the default front page are atrocious.

------
zitterbewegung
Anyone feel lost in the high amount of traffic? I have been a redditor for 5
years and I feel not only has the traffic grown considerably but the content
submitted has changed so much. The tone of the site has changed enough that I
only subscribe to usually low user count subreddits.

~~~
SkyMarshal
I've been subscribed to only non-default subreddits for so long I didn't even
notice the traffic growth, except for the occasional fail-whale. The niche
parts of the site are still good.

~~~
Florin_Andrei
So which subreddits do you find interesting? I tend to browse the fringe
parts, too, but even there there's an increase in noise, low-brow comments,
and narrow-minded fundamentalism.

~~~
gwern
For me, the valuable subreddits are the Touhou, Vocaloid, Haskell, and
philosophy of science subreddits.

------
oldstrangers
I wonder why no one talks about the huge growth for imgur, which has more
traffic than reddit...

[https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en...](https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en#siteDetails?identifier=imgur.com&lp=true)

[https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en...](https://www.google.com/adplanner/planning/site_profile?hl=en#siteDetails?identifier=reddit.com&lp=true)

~~~
walla
The guy who made the site is a Redditor. People where complaining about not
having a good image host so he made one. I think that site generates a lot of
income for him.

------
michaelpinto
To me this sums up what Reddit really got right: "The community is the most
passionate out there."

Towards the end of his time with Digg Kevin Rose seemed to have little empathy
for his audience, and the audience knew it when he checked out of the building
and handed things over to Jay. The redesign was more about having a solid code
base than rolling out new features for the users. And one got the sense that
while they had Twitter envy that Reddit was doubling down on making their
community (with all of their quirks) feel at home.

~~~
count
Actually, I think you've stumbled onto a more important point here.

Digg was primarily oriented around Kevin Rose and his 'posse'. Digg started
bombing when Kevin bailed.

Reddit was never about Steve or Alexis, it always seemed to be about the
community itself. So, when Steve, Alexis, Jeremy, Mike, and everybody else
who'd been there forever 'left', there was nothing to implode - the community
was still there and still thriving.

Does Kevin Rose even USE digg anymore? I know most of the original crew still
uses Reddit, but just as users, like the rest of us poor slobs.

~~~
michaelpinto
You're dead on -- Reddit was always about the users, never the founders. Not
only did Rose stop using the site when he went away, but he seemed pleased to
distance himself when he left. Sadly the new CEO seems to care, but many does
he have his work cut out for him.

------
zmmmmm
For me the standout feature of reddit is the ease of commenting and browsing
comments. Being able to reply, edit and even delete your comment inline
without leaving the thread probably raised my level of contribution more than
an order of magnitude. I don't understand why more sites (HN, hint hint?)
don't make commenting this easy.

------
ck2
If I ever wrote a list of top 10 times an internet "product" handed a
competitor most of it's "customers", two that would be on there include
MovableType v3 (went free to paid and caused WordPress 2.0 to actually gain
attention) and Digg v4.

------
dasil003
The crazy thing is how Reddit dominated Digg at the v4 launch. What the hell
happened there? Did the Reddit community mobilize 4chan-style? The article
teases us this sentence:

 _Please forgive the long screenshot below, but it’s important to understand
exactly how Reddit blasted the Digg front page at this time_

This suggests that they have something deeper to reveal, but instead it's just
a screenshot showing the actual posts on the front page—how much rather than
how.

~~~
jedberg
reddit was actually already bigger than Digg before they launched V4. There
was a lot of overlap of users and people were pissed off, so they thought it
would be funny.

------
nowarninglabel
Mandatory: [http://blog.reddit.com/2010/07/experts-misunderestimate-
our-...](http://blog.reddit.com/2010/07/experts-misunderestimate-our-
traffic.html)

Also, same title could have been posted in 2010 and 2009, which also saw
explosion in growth year-over-year.

------
dpcan
I have just ONE thing to say: Do not change anything Reddit.

Seriously, it's working, it's great to have, and I would be completely bummed
if they pulled their own "Digg v4" at broke a perfectly working system.

Sure, infrastructure can get better, or maybe small improvements as you see
happen on HN like with voting, points, etc, but otherwise, just let it ride.

~~~
jedberg
> or maybe small improvements as you see happen on HN like with voting,
> points, etc,

Hey, that reminds me. I use HN every day, but I still don't have an handle on
when the arrows appear and don't and when I can edit and can't.

Is there some page somewhere that actually outlines the rules, or do I have to
read the code?

~~~
kbd
I keep waiting to get the ability to downvote. Every 50 karma I get I think,
"maybe I can downvote now", but it never happens.

~~~
raldi
>= 251, last time I checked.

~~~
Macha
500 actually. I got it a little while ago. That's comments only.

~~~
count
Other fun comes at >1000.

~~~
alnayyir
Like what? I am at 2k++ and haven't noticed anything.

~~~
count
That's because you can't remember the lack of features for noobs :)
Downvoting, flagging, changing colors, etc.

~~~
alnayyir
Huh. Yeah, it's been awhile.

Way to make me feel old. :)

------
tokenadult
I searched this thread to see if monetization has been mentioned. I see that
it has been. Monetization was mentioned as a reason that Digg failed. What way
does Reddit have to make money? Does it make any difference to Reddit, if
Reddit has no way to make money, how much traffic Reddit has?

~~~
raldi
Reddit has many revenue streams. In no particular order: sidebar ads,
sponsored links, reddit gold (a for-pay set of premium features),
sponsorships, merchandise...

~~~
bostonvaulter2
I think Reddit could do much better with selling their merchandise, maybe by
selling things directly. I don't think I was really aware of the reddit store,
it's not very prominent and I don't remember many blog posts about it.

<http://store.reddit.com/index.html>

~~~
raldi
Do you use AdBlock?

------
csomar
In the snapshot he put, the stories has lots of diggs, but surprisingly few
views. The first story has for example 5733 dig and only 1015 views. This is
not normal, and suggests that something is going on.

------
diminish
slashdot, digg, reddit, hackernews; i am curious where will I be next year;

~~~
JLW
with the consistency of users i might get working!!! ha

------
ubershmekel
That floating share button really obscured the main article text on my
android. How about a close button for that annoying little thing?

------
drivebyacct2
Only posted an hour and already the same, predictable comments. People, please
take the time to explore other subreddits. If you stay subscribed to
reddit.com, pics, politics and other various default subreddits, you're not
going to enjoy yourself (unless you liked digg v4).

Also, I have no idea why reddit defaults to "top" for comment sorting. The
experience is much less gimmicky when you sort comments by "best". They're
usually more relevant and less meta/jokey. (edit, I appear to have been
mistaken on this, I was just sure when I created a new account a while back it
had defaulted to 'top'. Oh well, something to keep in mind anyhow.)

~~~
jedberg
The default is best, but if you've ever sorted by "top", it will remain "top"
until you change it back. It's a long standing bug. :)

~~~
raldi
Actually, one of the new guys fixed that. Hooray for progress!

~~~
jedberg
Oh yeah! It was in the changelog. I forgot, since I'm no longer responsible
for memorizing the changelog. ;)

