The home front
Posted on
July 17, 2013 by
Rev. Stuart Campbell
An alert reader today pointed us towards internet traffic analysis site Alexa.com, and in particular its statistics for the Yes and No campaigns’ official websites. There was an interesting quirk (or at least one that might pass for interesting in the silly season).
Can you spot it?
(Mind you, Alexa also provides the slightly surprising news that Wings Over Scotland is far more popular than either of them and that 23.7% of our traffic comes from Tunisia, so it might not be 100% reliable. But hey, what do you want? It’s our day off.)
Hmm, I see the oddity.
However, I’m much more amused that people find your site using the search terms “John Macintyre OBE” (seriuosly? People search for that obsessive Herald stalwart from down south somewhere?), “Salmond Fidel Castro” and “cybernat”. Nowt so queer as folk.
John MacIntyre OBE? Really?
Hmmm, odd how only 57.6% of BT’s visitors are fom the UK? I smell a rodent…
@Cath
‘However, I’m much more amused that people find your site using the search terms “John Macintyre OBE” (seriuosly? People search for that obsessive Herald stalwart from down south somewhere?)’
I suspect most of the searches for John Macintyre OBE are by…John Macintyre OBE.
Yer a Unionist naebody until you’ve been slagged off on Wings.
Excellent spot! Does that explain why the SoS polls seem to take a huge jump in the middle of the night, too? lol
And I love the Top Keywords for Wings too! Do you have the same for the other sites? 😀
42.4% of Thrown_Together – nigh on half are expat or from a TOR Browser or from Mars.
Maybe all those BT Facebook ads are being badly targeted.
“I suspect most of the searches for John Macintyre OBE are by…John Macintyre OBE.”
Ah, of course. Why didn’t I think of that? He really must be quite a sad person.
<waves to John who is presumably reading> Chin up, mate. Go and enjoy a Pimms in the sunshine instead! None of this really matters you know? If we vote Yes, life will go on just fine.
“Maybe all those BT Facebook ads are being badly targeted.”
Probably hitting loads of folk abroad who click on it because they think it’s a dating site. And leave fast after seeing images of Darling and Johann Lamont.
BT pop-ups are now popping up everywhere. Not a wise use of resources. They are becoming deperate!
From BT Facebook page comment. The Beautifully uninformed “It’s impossible to leave Salmond out of it. The SNP is run by a small clique if talentless third rate politicians. Look at his deputy, a talentless over promoted career politician. To attack the SNP means attacking Salmond because he has organised the party around himself and his cronies”
Alexa is not the most acurate thing in the world. Hoewver it is a very good indicator. Going from my own rankings and the known visitors figures for this site I would say that better together are getting around 10,000 a month and yesscotland is double at 20,000
@Tattie-boggle
From BT Facebook page comment. The Beautifully uninformed “It’s impossible to leave Salmond out of it. The SNP is run by a small clique if talentless third rate politicians. Look at his deputy, a talentless over promoted career politician. To attack the SNP means attacking Salmond because he has organised the party around himself and his cronies”
Oh dear. What a lot of garbage. So SLAB for instance would not like somebody of the calibre of Sturgeon in their party? Mind you how could she compete against the likes of Jackie Bailie, Patricia Ferguson, Lamont, Martin, McMahon etc? Nicola Sturgeon a career politician? What does this person think Darling, Alexander, Murphy, Harris, Curran etc are? Does this individual honestly think they are conviction politicians? More to the point: where is your famous positive case for the Union? Don’t make me laugh… 😀 😀
@Muttley79
It’s heartening that people are reading the BT site.
A pretty poor cupboard of ‘hope’ they must have on display.
Ah, Tunisia, that’ll be GCHQ tapping in somewhere in the desert.
O/T, sort of…
oh no, Tunisia? when my son lost his mobile last month, the toerag that found it called Tunisia over 24 hours while we searched for the phone and before cancelling it, and they ran up a bill of £490.00. So tunisia has bad connotations for me…
and the better together facebook ads have been snuck into my and others’ pages and actually looks like a ‘yes’ ad until you look closer, so many people have clicked ‘like’ by mistake. Very underhand, but what’s new?
I still haven’t heard even one positive case for the union, but most recent reason given by a Labour friend is, the uk is crap, getting worse and so is Scotland.
@Bugger
There must be thousands of those evil Scotch separatists in Tunisia, using it as a base for their repellent cybernat tactics…
I have looked at the Better Together Faceache page and I have to say it is a real Private Faser experience. They make Eeyore look cheerful….curiously nasty edge to some of it as well but hey ho, that’s politics. The comments are as one would expect a mixed bag and we all have our intemperate members but the articles on Yes Scotland are a lot lighter and more positive on the eye and heart.
Remember “Better Together was originally the brand of http://www.bettertogetherscotland.com, an NHS Scotland initiative. Furthermore, there’s a helluva lot of Better Togethers around the world.
Their hit rate may be high, but I doubt more than a few linger to read.
Slightly O/T.
Why have there been no recent opinion polls about Independence in the media?
O.T. a tad. Ian Bell has a very good piece in todays Herald, ‘ The lies of the land that demonise people’. It regards bankers bonuses, crown estates, and people on benefits.
I say, “Damn those Tunisians”
I say “I prefer the line caught dolphin friendly Tunisians, in olive oil preferably.”
Why have there been no recent opinion polls about Independence in the media?
If current poll support for independence was down, or stalled at 30%, they would be plastered all over the front pages. DC has recently suggested (we have already won, but) support for independence may rise a little due to anti-coalition protest. Read into that what you will.
I’d love to see a WoS article on OBE, and his unhealthy obsessions… But more than that I’d love to see Jezerna (The false flag Sage of Serbia) being outed.
Another very recent poll by ICM shows the following results for voting for Westminster in a Scottish Sub-sample. (The UK poll showed Tories and Labour each at 36%.)
SNP 40%
Labour 30%
Conservatives 18%
Greens 6%
Liberal Democrats 3%
UKIP 1%
Others 2%
No wonder Scottish Labour are spitting vile venom at the SNP and AS. Because it appears that a NO or a YES vote in Indyref is going to kill the career prospects of the pig troughers and wannabees at Westminster. The figures also seem to demonstrate that the negative campaign is really a disaster for Scottish Labour.
The Tunisian Government has a massive Better Together campaign. The stats are correct. Seriously.
Erimac. Yup.
link to opengovibt.org
OpenGov: It’s Better Together is the beginning of a new era for governance in Tunisia. On 19 December in Bizerte, government champions, civil society idealists, and private sector innovators will gather to discuss how to create and implement projects that will improve government transparency and accountability through open data, citizen engagement through e-participation, and service provision through online applications.
Another very recent poll by ICM shows the following results for voting for Westminster in a Scottish Sub-sample. (The UK poll showed Tories and Labour each at 36%.)SNP 40%Labour 30%Conservatives 18%Greens 6%Liberal Democrats 3%UKIP 1%Others 2%
Insert those figures at link to scotlandvotes.com and you get some interesting results. 🙂
Brian Ritchie
Wheeeeeeoooow! I put the figures in. I didn’t realise things would be so bad for Labour.
Remember “Better Together was originally the brand of http://www.bettertogetherscotland.com,
Yes, hence why I have a Better Together pen and keyring.
Poor old Tunisians. They click on thinking they’re getting some friendly, open governance site and find the precise opposite. Hope it doesn’t put them off their government!
I think this is down to a few things. Bitter Together’s supporters already know their guff inside out, and as has been noted most other visitors think it’s a dating site because it’s such a generic name that doesn’t really specify what it is. If you check hashtags or trending it turns out a decent chunk of the people talking about better together are often not even in the UK and are talking about something else.
Yes Scotland however, is pretty much as to the point as you can get. Better Together doesn’t explain anything with the name. Who is better, together with what?
Oddly, neither does it explain with the rest of the website.
Generic names might help them pretend they’re more relevant than they are by sharing unrelated blogosphere and twitter hits, but given how easy it is to show the problems with their broad and generalised ideas on everything, this is just par for the course.
Better Together: Barely explains anything and is so broad, omitting so many key facts and points, as to be rendered meaningless when examined under any scrutiny. They can’t even keep their own bloody name focused and clear.
@Ericmac & scottish_skier
Mystery solved! You couldn’t make it up, really, you couldn’t.
John McIntyre OBE is I believe a tit from Inverclyde
“John McIntyre OBE is I believe a tit from Inverclyde”
In the light of recent revelations about Riverside Inverclyde, you’re going to have to narrow that down a bit.
Another very recent poll by ICM shows the following results for voting for Westminster in a Scottish Sub-sample.
It’s better than that if you look at all the subsamples (unweighted) from every poll and the weighted SNP share of the UK total. I use the latter to determine SNP share and the former the remainder splits for the other parties.
SNP UKGE VI peaked late 2011 at 47% (just a smidgen lower than Holyood VI). It then fell back over 2012 to 42% at the end of the year. This was mirrored by 31% for Labour late 2011, recovering to over 35% late 2012.
You see the same trends in Yougov (ignore absolute values as Yougov weights Scotland like it was England which is wrong in so many ways).
However, SNP has been climbing again rapidly and is at least 45%. Labour down to 31% again over the past six months with an acceleration of decline around May (UKIP factor?).
This mirrors independence polls which peaked with the Yes ahead in late 2011 (right, Tories are back and we’re off) followed by a decline through 2012 (wow, this is a bit of a step and I didn’t think about the EU etc) with No peaking at the end of the Year.
Since then (hey, I’m being told a lot of crap about independence by BT and Labour are going full on Tory with UKIP deciding policy, I think I’m going to back yes definitely), we’ve seen the Yes rising (only MORI has it steady) with the no falling (panelbase, Angus Reid, TNS, only MORI have it steady within variance).
That recent MORI that had BT singing and dancing was a rogue which probability says will happen at some point (they caught too many people who felt strongly British so did not match Scotland’s demographic in this respect). Chances are the next one from MORI, whilst still being on the higher side for No (discredited landlines telephone polling and associated problems cause this), will show a fair drop in No and rise in Yes, even if just from probability within variance.
In summary, evidence increasingly suggests NO peaked late last year and has been on the slide. Modest 2012 recovery for Labour in Scotland is dying off too.
I’m happy with the way things are going anyway.
Enlightening analysis Skier as usual 🙂 Things are EVEN WORSE for Labour. Spitting venom indeed!
What about the Greater Tit from the ‘West Midlands’? Now would that be somewhere around Lanark?
Interesting to note Alf Young is chairman of Riverside Inverclyde.
Ericmac
Didn’t OBE join us here briefly? However, as he seems to mount a full time watch on the Herald I doubt he can spare us the time. I can’t say I have ever felt enticed to respond to his Herald musings. However, I thought he was an ex pat, lost somewhere in middle England and consequently irrelevant to the vote as is Jerenza from Slovenia and MM from wherever. Their frequently quite colourful assertions as to the political affiliations of the FM and all his little demons, whilst entertaining, aren’t actually adding a tin of beans to the debate.
Better Together – Maybe getting so many hits because people think it’s a marriage guidance outfit.
Luigi
Some little questions for you, are you from Inverness? if so do you have a restaurant there? Do you own a motorhome.?
Nah – youv’e got the wrong guy, Les. I’m from Aberdeen.
@handandshrimp
“Didn’t OBE join us here briefly? However, as he seems to mount a full time watch on the Herald I doubt he can spare us the time. I can’t say I have ever felt enticed to respond to his Herald musings. However, I thought he was an ex pat, lost somewhere in middle England and consequently irrelevant to the vote as is Jerenza from Slovenia and MM from wherever. Their frequently quite colourful assertions as to the political affiliations of the FM and all his little demons, whilst entertaining, aren’t actually adding a tin of beans to the debate.”
You are quite correct. I must admit I do feel the need to challenge these three because they are on the one mainstream newspaper that people can find a modicum of balance. I hate the idea that these extremists can taint people progressing their thoughts and beliefs….
Its no coincidence that Jezerna appeared on the only Scottish Newspaper that engages some sensible people in sensible debate… I have no doubt that there are two or three people posting under her name and are paid to do so by one of the party research units.
They are unrelenting in their attacks… with the sole intention of hurting the electorate.
The other ardent, vitriolic, and rabid GH poster is called Peter Kelly, outed on here a few days ago. I congratulated him on the infamous publicity.. I don’t think he likes me any longer 🙂
I think it is Terry Kelly you are talking about Ericmac
@ Tattie-boggle
The SNP is run by a small clique if talentless third rate politicians .
So the BT commentator imagined they were dishing an insult calling AS’s team “Third rate”? Well in the age of sail, where the term appears to have come from, third rates were warships that were considered to have the right speed, agility and firepower to do the job effectively. To be surrounded by third raters would either have been terrifying as an enemy or reassuring as a friend.
First and Second rate ships of the day were considered to be too expensive to operate, too slow, cumbersome and, unless it was a near flat calm, were unable to deliver a full broadside due to the low waterline / gun-port configuration. They were usually used to plough up and down, trying to look effective as blockade / flagships.
Third rates were the ships of the day. A bit like Alex’s team don’t you think?
“John MacIntyre OBE, WOKING”
Is Woking in Tunisia?
“I’d love to see a WoS article on OBE, and his unhealthy obsessions… But more than that I’d love to see Jezerna (The false flag Sage of Serbia) being outed.”
Are you kidding? a self serving nonentity like McIntyre getting the wings treatment? he’d go into raptures, he’s a nobody. if we ignore clowns like him and the genius Terry Kelly they’ll soon find a new fly to pull the (wings) off,
just saw Terry Kelly’s picture on his website ha ha , and if you visualize an objectionable creature it would look like that picture >-)
can anyone tell me if John Mcintyre O.B.E. Woking, Surrey, England
has a vote in the referendum?
I’ve got it I’ve got it
I’ts John Mcintyre Old Bucket Emptier
ah’ll get ma coat :#)
Luigi.
cheers, was just wondering as a met a guy……
Now what is the problem about Tunisia? After all wings is the first site I visit every morning and again in the evening. How else do I keep up with the times?