Tag: nlj news

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Google vs HN at the NLJ (1) by Nicholas A. FerrellNicholas A. Ferrell (The Emu Café Social)
As of the evening of January 18, 2024, we are on pace to have more Google referrals this month (according to Koko Analytics, which I also use here) than Hacker News referrals.

I have been busy with New Leaf Journal and law work as of late, but I return to The Emu Café Social with a fun New Leaf Journal update. As of the afternoon of January 29, 2023, we have more Google referrals at The New Leaf Journal than Hacker News referrals despite our fairly high Hacker News page 1 appearance earlier in the month. It took a record Google month to do it, but is another sign things are looking up in terms of New Leaf Journal notoriety after struggling for much of 2023 with our arbitrary Bing ban.

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Over at The New Leaf Journal, my January 5, 2024 article, which was about drug-enhanced professional cycling results, became the sixth New Leaf Journal article (going back to February 2021) to appear on Hacker News page 1 (only after a stop in The Browser newsletter). It reached as high as 11th on HN and was our fourth-strongest Hacker News article of the six that made page one. The page 1 run dissipated, but it left behind one encouraging point about NLJ’s notoriety. As of the evening of January 18, 2024, we are on pace to have more Google referrals this month (according to Koko Analytics, which I also use here) than Hacker News referrals. It will take a record Google month for us to do it, but we should make it by the 29th or 30th. While I am not a Google fan and only use Google Search via Startpage, I am a proponent on making it possible for people to find writing of interest with whatever search engine or front-end they prefer.

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I published an article on The New Leaf Journal about doping in cycling during (and before) the Armstrong era. I noted in my Saturday newsletter that it unexpectedly blew up (by our standards) within hours of its publication. I was not immediately able to identify the source, but I figured out from our referrals that it had been shared by The Browser, a paid newsletter which sends readers five links per day. At the time, I could not confirm this directly because I am not a paid subscriber, but I noticed that The Browser shares several free links from past newsletters each day. Today, it shared our link, and I saved proof in the form of a Wayback Machine screenshot. Very neat.