New LAMB Never Too Early Movie Predictions barely edged out leaderboard champ MiNG Movie Reviews for the top spot in August.
We have six new/returning entrants to the board and down to 20% of the leaderboard being populated with the generic LAMB Banner. Send me your personalized LAMB Banners to get that percentage lower.
Speaking of LAMB Banners, six new ones have been added to the Gallery/random banner widget. Want yours in there? Just send it to me. More details on that here.
Its time for the favorite time of month where your favorite mini feature the LAMBoard is updated! This month we had a true clash of the LAMBs as two fairly new LAMBs clashed it out for the top spot! Check who they were after the jump! This months winner was no…
So its that time of month again! July’s update has a blog on top that is very prominent on the LAMBoard but hasn’t topped it for quite some time! Welcome back on top KL5-Film it has been some months since last time and I urge you to check out his podcast…
This month’s LAMBoard ranking was a slugfest between last months runner-up KL5-Film and French Toast Sunday who has been an avid climber the last couple of months and lost out only with two(!!!) hits. Noticeable is also that this months LAMBoard had almost an entire original LAMB banner round-up. Only…
Thanks Rachel! I think I’m going to go the humble route and say it is just beginner’s luck.
I still don’t understand the point of this board. There isn’t any doubt that 95% of the “hits” are the blog owner clicking the link themselves.
Really, Castor – 95%? So when AM makes it, that’s just you doing all of the clicking?
I don’t doubt that that happens to some extent, but I don’t think it’s nearly as widespread as you seem to think it is.
I’d agree. I use the link from my own site less than once per day.
Castor: I don’t understand the point of bitching about it?
I used to use my links quite frequently but not that much anymore. Once a day or every day maybe. Whats important is probably to plug the lamb through posts and I guess thats what Never Too early… did with an intro lamb post.
I’m happy to make it onto the podium this month!
Good for “Never” – like I said earlier, though … I find it a bit odd that a site that not many of us know of, is at the top.
Regardless, there’s some great content there.
Good work.
Lovin’ all the disrespect on the LAMB today.
I’m sure this leaderboard would look a lot different if the results were filtered by Unique Visitors. But I’m just glad to be on here for the first time.
I have to admit that I agree with Castor on this one. Certainly I could be wrong (but I don’t think so), but whenever I see brand new Lambs on the leader board I think it owes to the blog owner clicking the link themselves. It just doesn’t bother me.
I navigate to the Lamb via my bookmark bar, not by clicking the link on my site. I’m always really careful about this because I’m a statistics junkie and I see my leader board place as another metric of what my site visitors are clicking on. (I can’t seem to get Google Analytics’ in-page info to show me how many visitors click my Lamb link – if anyone knows, by all means give me a tutorial.)
So do I care if Bloggers click themselves to the top? Not really — it affects my rank but not the little traffic number that I really care about. At the end of 2010, I was at the top for three months, which exactly coincided with my film noir poster countdown. My blog surpassed 300,000 hits over the course of those four months. Yet, I don’t think my leader board number ever reached 137 — and I was getting an extraordinary amount of traffic and buzz all over the web at the time, even from major print media. Yet despite all the traffic from visitors unfamiliar with the Lamb, my number never got to 137. I get about half the traffic now, and my number this month is 64 — about half what is was when I was on top, so the metrics seem to be true and accurate.
It’s also fair to extrapolate a few more things simply because my blog falls into such a small niche: The reason I’m even on the leader board each and every month at all is because the vast majority of my visitors are unfamiliar with the Lamb, and click the link just to see what it is. Less than 5% of my traffic comes from other film blogs, much less Lamb members. Most of my visitors are classic film enthusiasts trying to acquire the films I write about. Or movie poster people looking to DL hi-res files.
The only extent to which I care about blog owners clicking themselves is that I’d like to see where I would finish each month were that not possible. But in the end, it’s no biggie.
Sorry for the long post — I just thought I could shine an interesting light on the discussion, and I love talking about data!
I’m not taking it personally since I did my homework and realized that this conversation has been hotly debated since at least December: http://largeassmovieblogs.blogspot.com/2010/12/poll-results-new-poll.html and that there are a whole bunch of months this year where folks have had 200 to 300 referrals that would easily have trumped my rating: http://largeassmovieblogs.blogspot.com/search/label/LAMB%20Leaderboard , so it’s just chance that this question even came up. Plus, you all have really cool blogs that I enjoy reading, so I feel like I know you a bit!
But to the extent that I’m the catalyst for its re-emerging, I suspect JoelB and Castor are both partially right. I did do a special post when I joined, and made a special point of placing the Lamb banners and scrolls in my sidebar, and even linking back to the lambscores when I did reviews, because I thought that was what I was supposed to do. And at least one new lamb has since mentioned that they learned about the lamb through my site.
And, as a new kid myself, I’m sure I did visit more often than others because I’m not only new to the lamb, but also new to blogging, so it took me a while to figure out how to set up all the features like adding the code for the lamb link, scrollbar, banner, forums, twitter, etc. Heck, I even had to have Dylan explain what a podcast was so that I knew I didn’t have one! But it wasn’t malicious. Just me trying to learn the ropes. Which is kind of what I meant by “Beginner’s Luck.”
I guess the really good news is that if I’m anywhere on the board in future rounds, I won’t be the site no one has heard of, but rather I’ll be “That Guy”–for better or worse!
Ewe’rs in Lambdom…
Gotta love that when we finally do have some participation on the LAMB – it’s to question someone’s site.
Hopefully my comment above ^^^ wasn’t too mean, like I said just a bit confused.
What Castor said is sort of right, though. Let’s be honest, Anomalous Material, The Matinee, and Man, I Love Films are the biggest sites on here – and none of which made the “leader boards” … Just not sure how that works out.
Not a big deal though. It’s nice to see a new LAMB member be active and participating. For that, we all should be thankful.
Duke: I agree that its sad to see a lengthy discussion being this negative. I do enjoy bickering with Castor, everyone that follows us knows that. However, this time I think he wasted his precious time ranting about this.
The main reason I’m on the podium is probably because I linked to the Lamb on several of my posts this month due to being on the LAMB cast for the first time. I can honestly say I have clicked on my own links once a day maximum. When deducting those 30 clicks its still almost a hundred visitors and this feature is about getting visitors to the site right?
I’d think it would be interesting to see a stats breakdown through google analytics on the incoming LAMB traffic as well. For instance I hope that the twitter referrals have added some visits to the site.
I don’t want to sound like a dick and maybe I am but let’s face it, You all know it, I’m just stating what everyone is thinking.
Mark makes two extremely good points: One, this is just a trivial issue as it doesn’t really matter who is on the leaderboard. Even being #1 really doesn’t bring any kind of traffic whatsoever but IMO, there should be a better system in place if you want to reward people who are actually “active” (whatever that means)
Secondly, Mark points out his blog traffic which would undoubtedly be among the Top 5 busiest on the LAMB and still getting only a fraction of the LAMB hits some blogs have been getting over the months.
AM doesn’t display the link on every page anymore but I just find it odd that blogs that are getting relatively little traffic manage to generate so many hits to LAMB.
Now… I’m glad I brought some discussion to the LAMB muahahahhaa
@NeverTooEarlyMP: I wasn’t sniping at you in particular or anything. It’s just been bothering me for a year or two.
@ Joel: The point of bitching about it is bringing a discussion like this to the forefront and maybe have some kind of better system down the road. Sure it’s a bit negative but it’s better than avoiding it because people’s feeling might get hurt.
Last thing I will say for now:
Japan Cinema is probably the busiest website on the LAMB. They have a LAMB link on the right sidebar (one of only five). They get well over one million visitors a year and oh look, they didn’t even manage 35 hits this month? So when I say 95%, maybe I’m not exaggerating.
While you may be right about Japan Cinema, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen that site contribute here – or chat on the forums.
Unless someone who I just know by name, not site, writes for them.
I just hope that new LAMB’s (including “never”) stay active. Not just for the first month they enter the LAMB, but until they stop writing about film.
We have all the pieces for a great community, but we’re lacking in lively discussion and conversation between each other. – I understand I’m brushing on a larger issue, just thought I’d post it here – where people seem to be reading and commenting.
I mine as well note, that was not a put down Dylan and Rachel – both of you who I know dedicate parts of your lives to this – and I’m very thankful – I’m just stating my observations – and I reckon, many others.
Progression is key. So if my words of pushing have to be the fuel, than so be it.
Have a nice day everyone.
Castor: I knew that was your point too I just couldn’t help myself when set it up so good.
I do think it is valid to be on the leader board. I check out Lammies on there that I wasn’t aware of.
So for the Matinee, Anomalous Material and Man I love films its probably not as important.
Duke: I’m glad you are trying to improve LAMB interaction we will hopefully get there someday. Rachel and Dylan has done a great job now its the rest of us that got to keep up with that.
And so, my fellow LAMBs: ask not what the LAMB can do for you – ask what you can do for the LAMB.
Castor, Duke and all, No worries. Like I said, I’d read enough here to know that it was an ongoing conversation and not really about me. And I do hope to stay actively blogging and involved in The LAMB as much as I can.
Sounds like one of those healthy conversations that has to happen in every community once in a while: How do you set up systems to make sure that long-time and well-known contributors are getting credit for the incredible work they do, and which can too often get taken for granted, while giving the new folks a way to get started.
Ahh… Castor, always causing controversy on the web (I’m still holding you responsible for that DH2 Harry Potter urgency that happened in YAM Magazine LOL).
I stand by Japan Cinema, though – like Castor has said. And I think we all forget something important… we want to drive traffic to our own websites, I don’t think many want to drive traffic from their website to another – if you know what I mean. So as much as you want to build the LAMB, every site owner is really just responsible for their site… so I actually don’t mind The LAMB Leaderboard – it’s kind of a way to reward those who might be very active in the community.
Obviously, it depends on who your audience is, but in the end as a film blogger you don’t want to drive traffic to another film blogger because (even if we’re a community and discuss among ourselves) some of us are our own competition.
And Joel, I’m still waiting for your contribution xD
Amy: Wow talk about competitive spirit. Still tho there are some great benefits in helping each other out and promoting each other… on that note I’m doing my finishing touches on the Yammag guest post *not*. =)
I’m almost on the verge starting write it. I just need to upgrade my servers so it can carry the enormous traffic spikes that Yammag will bring on my site. =)
Joel, no worries.
I’ll click on your link once every hour. LOL
Man, we haven’t had this much controversy since….hm. I can’t remember when. We just need someone to call Rachel a musical instrument like a trumpet. I guess I’ll do it.
Rachel, you’re an oboe!
-Jason
I’ve been on the leaderboard in the top 5 or so for months and months now, so I figured I’d chime in (365horrormovie).
My blog has been built, like almost everyone’s here, from the ground up. Sure, some owners may click their way to the top, but it seems like the bloggers that are active and creating interesting content typically are steady and STAY on the board.
When I joined the LAMB my blog was getting 2k views a month, now around 65K. I’ve seen a steady increase each month and earned my position. I feel good about it. And isn’t that the most important thing (lol, my mom would be proud).
So, when we get a random or new blog at the top I do usually take it with a grain of salt. But there’s a possibility that their blog was already popular and had the base to be big right away prior to joining. If they don’t make the list next month or drop way down, then we’ll know.
Until then, I am going to focus on important things. Like catching up on checking out my fellow LAMBs blogs.
To get back to the initial question Castor had – “what is the point of the leaderboard?”
The point is to list the sites that send the most traffic to the LAMB.
I said this months (or years) ago and I’ll say it again, even at the risk of irking some people: I don’t doubt that their are or have been site owners that click their own links to up their spot on the Leaderboard. But you know what? I don’t care. If it happens, so be it. All it means is that they have a) a lot of dedication to getting their name out there to other LAMB members, b) a lot of free time, and/or c) a potentially skewed way of building traffic for their own site. Some of these things can be interpreted as fraudulent and some can be interpreted as commendable.
Either way, who is harmed? Castor, Mark and others have brought this up, but…it’s not like there’s a prize for being on the board and it doesn’t send boatloads of traffic back to other sites. It’s for fun and it counts a very simple stat. I don’t understand the commotion outside of envy. You want up there? You know a few ways how to do it.
To be honest I was under the impression the Leaderboard only counted unique links. Judging from all this hoopla, I guess that is not the case. Hell, if I knew this maybe I would have clicked on a lot more.
That was just a joke. I do not plan on doing such in the future.
I think the Leaderboard is fun and I like that I have (for the most part) held relatively good positioning on it this past year – even without needing to extra click as some may be doing.
It is all in fun anyway, isn’t it?
Late to the game (story of my life), but isn’t it possible that even a site is quite popular that the plethora of visitors AREN’T clicking on the lamb icon for one reason or the other, and vice versa on a small site? It’s not really about how much people are on your site, it’s about how much people are clicking on the LAMB Icon and I imagine that on those sites which have become staples everyone knows everyone and doesn’t need to click on the LAMB icon via their site. It would probably be different on a smaller site where new people are learning about the LAMB through it, hence the chronic clicking.