My Site: Geek.

com
Miranda Patton
Intro to Web Publishing
Success Paper
16 September 2014

Website Overview:

General site/company information: According to the about

page found at the bottom of the home page of Geek.com, the
website has been an online technology resource and community
for technology enthusiast and professionals. In 1996 Joel Evans
and Rob Hughes founded the site. The site originated as a
newsletter but adapted to the audience by adding more content
including technology. In January 2011, after having many
different owners, the site was sold to Ziff Davis which hosts a
myriad of different sites all relating to technology, gaming, and
mens lifestyle. Geek.com features the latest news and reviews
of the most popular hardware and software, along with computer
buying guides, features, and etcetera. The main focus of
Geek.com is their general news section, bringing their audience
all the latest news in the gaming and technology world. Their
users can even subscribe to a newsletter to be sent to them via
email. Other sections include: apps, culture, mobile, tablets,
deals, and Geek answers. The apps section includes news stories
regarding the world of applications such as the newest apps, app
developments, and etcetera. The culture, mobile, and tablet

My Site: Geek.com
pages are like the first two, in which they all feature news stories
specific to the topic of the page. The deals page features
different technology mostly computers- and how you can get
the best deals for them. Coupon codes are given to users to use
when buying a computer from different sellers such as HP and
Dell. The page Geek Answers includes articles answering
various questions relating to science and technology, such as,
Does nuclear waste really glow? There are also pages featuring
brand specific news and rumors. The pages include Apple,
Android, and PS4. Two other pages are included that are specific
to games and science news. Geek.com includes content specific
to the technology and gaming world and includes other related
subjects such as science. The purpose of the website is to offer
the latest news and rumors about these subjects to its users so
they can stay up to date with what their specific interests are
and get the best deals on the hottest new technology. Geek.com
is a content site that deals heavily with news for the gaming and
technology savvy community. Their audience ranges like most
audiences, but leans more heavily towards the male
demographic, therefore incorporating the companys idea of
mens lifestyle. The company Ziff Davis was founded in Chicago
Illinois in the year 1927. The company is a magazine publishing
and Internet information provider. The company started as a

My Site: Geek.com
publisher of hobbyist magazines that were targeted at the more
expensive hobbies such as cars, photography, and electronics.
The first technology publications began in 1954 with Popular
Electronics. In 1982 the company acquired PC Magazine and
began their transition to computer and Internet related

publishing.
Competing Site: The competing site I chose is arstechnica.com.
I chose this site because it covers all the same news that
Geek.com covers. Other sites I viewed only covered science and
technology, excluding the whole gaming genre. Ars technica is a
content website that has news stories that cover science,
technology, and gaming news as well as a few other topics. This
website features a specific technology brand just like geek.com
and provides reviews of the new and upcoming technology to
further its users knowledge of the subjects that interest them the
most. However, the only product specific page is for Apple.
Another page is dedicated to brands, however, a myriad of
different brands populate that page and it makes it difficult to
find the one you are looking for, such as Android. The main focus
of the news stories on this site is technology news and rumors.
The homepage is flooded with the latest articles, most of which
include the latest releases in new technology and rumors on
upcoming technology. There are specific subjects covered on Ars
Technica that Geek.com does not include such as cars and

My Site: Geek.com
automotive news as well as government developments relating
to technology and the Internet. The site also includes featured
disciples on its main menu, which include photography,
productivity, cloud, gadgets, and tablets. These two sites cover
many of the same things, however, I noticed that Ars Technica
has created a more genre specific drop down menu for their site
making the search for specific news articles more efficient. This
site is a strong competitor for Geek.com because of the scope of
content that it covers that is similar to Geek.com and then
exceeds in the organization of its content. Another factor that
makes it a competitor is their target audience, which is the
technology, and gaming enthusiasts. Even the advertisements on
their page relate to mens lifestyle, one of the main covered
subjects for Ziff Davis, the owner of Geek.com. Their layout
proves to be more user friendly, on a drop down menu there is
an option to chose the sites color scheme for the individual user,
either light or dark. Their articles are organized vertically by
subject content and the site makes good use of space, leaving
proper spaces for advertisements and a reasonable amount of
white space.
Design and Layout Analysis:

Browser Type: The main browser I am using to view

Geek.com is Safari. The browser I am using for comparison is

My Site: Geek.com
Google Chrome. There are no significant differences between
the two web browsers except for the advertisements. The two
browsers refresh every few minutes and the advertisement on
each page change every time the page refreshes. One of the
less noticeable differences is the color resolution. Google
Chrome has a slightly brighter color scheme than Safari.
Overall, the slight, almost unnoticeable differences between
the different browsers indicate that Geek.com has a good
consistency among many different platforms so that the users
can easily use the website no matter what browser is being
used.

My Site: Geek.com

Monitor Resolution: The resolution I am using to view my

webpage is 1280x800. Of course, when I change the
resolution the pixilation changes therefore changing the entire

1024x768 resolution

screen image as a whole. On the next page a screen shot

shows the screen resolution 1024x768, which is still a normal
resolution for computer screens. There are little differences,
mainly that the image is bigger than the usual setting due to
the decrease in pixilation. The resolution still shows the full
screen but with a less sharp image than the original resolution
being used.

My Site: Geek.com

800x600 screen resolution

Monitor Resolution (continued): The image on the

previous page shows a display of 800x600. The pixilation has
once again decreased creating a larger overall image. The

My Site: Geek.com
browser is unable to display the entire screen due to the lower
quality resolution. The original resolution I am using
-1280x768- shows a sharper smaller image so the whole
browser is displayed on the entire screen, no part of the

application being cut off or distorted.

Layout:
o Page Elements: When referring to the diagram on page
26 in the textbook Above the Fold by Brian Miller, the
website Geek.com follows parts of this diagram, and
other parts are altered slightly. For instance; the header,
neavigation, feature, and footer are in realtively the
same place. The only slight alterations are the sidebar
and body/content. However, this is not a dramatic
difference from the formatting presented in the text
book. The sidebar is on the left instead of the right and
the content is not the exact center, instead it is more to
the right instead of the left. Usually the content is more
left because in the United States we read from left to
right, therefore the most important information should
be place to the left for the reader to identify first. On the
side bar, the information provided are advertisments, a
sign up for a subscription to Geek.coms newsletter, and
a quick link to like
Geek.coms facebook page. Geek.coms facebook page.
It appears that the choice for a header highlight the

My Site: Geek.com

Navigation/Header

Advertisement

days most popular

Feature

stories are listed here.

In the featured section

Advertisement

an article is shown to

Side Bar

be the chosen feature

Advertisement

story for the website.

Following the featured
story are related
stories and then the
most recent stories in
decending order. The
header for this
webpage seems to be
Body/Content

the top stories on the

page, however, the
stories do not remain
consistent when
clicking through the
website. The
navigation bar acts as
the header when
clicking away from the
home page. Overall,

Footer

My Site: Geek.com
the navigation bar is included in the header, and on the
home page the header includes featured stories. The
sidebar is effectively used for advertisements, featuring
the newsletter subscription sign up, and a quick link to
like their Facebook page. The footer of the page
provides appropriate information such as an about us
page, contact, links to their other sites, and other
appropriate information.
o Above the Fold: Brian Millers definition of above the fold
indicates the information contained above the horizontal
fold of the newspaper. In web browsing, this is applied
to the information contained on the page until the
browser ends at the bottom. The most important
information or the breaking news of the day is contained
above the fold according to the websites audience. On
the homepage of Geek.com the content contained
above the fold contains two featured stories at the very
top immediately drawing attention. The navigation bar
is also at the top of the page; since the navigation bar
will be the most used tool on the site it is important to
keep it where the user can easily identify it. An
advertisement follows the navigation bar, big enough to
be noticed immediately. Advertisements help websites
earn money, so having an advertisement easily

My Site: Geek.com
identifiable will allow for users to link to other websites
through Geek.coms advertisements. Lastly, another
featured story -the most read story of the day- is at the
bottom just before we scroll up, ending the fold of the
homepage. The content contained above the fold on
Geek.com is appropriate as it contains the most
important information to its users and makes it easy for
users to navigate through the website directly from the
homepage without any scrolling. Immediately, the
breaking stories and most popular stories are shown
letting the user quickly identify that information. The
site uses the hierarchy of information well by placing
the most important/breaking news at the top of the
page and then descends the order of the articles
published by the time of day they were published. The
most important visual information on the homepage
contains the top two featured stories, followed by the
navigation bar, advertisement, and then another
featured story.
o Upper Left: When navigating away from the homepage
the navigation bar is present at the top of the page
consistently throughout the website. At the upper left of
the page is the logo for Geek.com, which also acts as a
home button.

My Site: Geek.com

o Upper Left (continued): As a user looks at a webpage,

the most likely reading style used would be scanning.
Their focus is on the left side and then as they loose
interest they stop looking at the right of the page. With
the navigation bar, the most important information to
the users is located to the very left. The furthermost link
is the News page, which includes all the top news
stories for the particular date the user is viewing. News
is followed by Apps which contains news about apps and
software, technology being the forefront of the users
interests as determined by the website. The next page
is called Culture, which includes articles all about Geek
Culture. Mobile is the next page link that shows all the
latest news in phones, followed by tablets. The deals
page follows, which gives the users various coupons for
technology. Lastly, the page Geek Answers is all the way
to the right, indicating it is the least viewed page on the
navigation bar. The links located in the very left of the
page are the most used, the large Geek logo also acting
as a home button is the most used on any website and

My Site: Geek.com
is logically placed. Since the websites focus is on news
it would only make sense to follow the home button with
a news page. All the links that follow are placed
strategically based on the interests of the users.
o Ads:

o The top of the page contains the largest ad, which

belongs to Best Buy, a technology retailer. Seeing as the
audience of this site is heavily interested in technology
this ad is appropriate to be featured. Of course, the
advertisements change with the routine refreshing of
the page. The other two ads are located in the side bar
on the left of the page, an optimal location for the
businesses advertising on Geek.com. As stated before,
the left side of the page is the side most looked at due
to the users scanning habits. The advertisements will
be the first elements noticed on the webpage. The
above ad is located above the fold, the most coveted
space for advertisers to have their ads located. The side
bar is also optimized to fit many different ads without

My Site: Geek.com
leaving too much white space. The Best Buy
advertisement is a leaderboard ad and has the most
optimal position on the page. The two other ads are big
box ads, easily fitting the sidebar making it look natural
and a smooth transition into the main content on the
page. The picture shown is the websites side bar
containing one of the big box advertisements for Verizon
Wireless. The ad is contained with other important
information such as the social media links and
newsletter subscription. All the information placed in the
Ad

side bar is strategic so that the users notice it first when

scanning the sites various webpages.
Traffic Analysis:

Traffic Source: Quantcast.com

o [Geek.com] Unique Visitors: 228.5K
o Analysis: The statistics for unique visitors is
recorded monthly, however, the website
Quantcast states that the information

provided is estimated as Geek.com does not use

Quantcast. According to the latest unique visitor statistics,
the visits are down by 17% since last month. According to
Quantcasts statistics, Geek.com rates as 7,823 visited site
in the United States. The demographics and audience
interests for Geek.com are not provided through Quantcast

My Site: Geek.com
because once again the site does not use Quantcast.
Therefore, there are no concrete conclusions to be made
about Geek.coms traffic through Quantcast seeing as all
the information is estimated. The only information provided
is unique visitors to the website and an estimation of
Geek.coms ranking among U.S. websites.
o [Arstechnica.com] Unique Visitors: 988.4K
o Analysis: Ars Technica does not use Quantcast either for its
traffic information, so once again the information here is
not completely reliable. However, the increase in unique
visitors from Geek.com is significantly higher. Visits are
also up 38% since last month. The site also ranks 1,961 out
of all U.S. sites. Once again, demographics and audience
interests cannot be provided since the websites do not use
Quantcast. However, according to this website Ars technica
has an overwhelmingly increased amount of unique visitors

compared to Geek.com.
Traffic Source: Alexa.com
o [Geek.com] Bounce Rate: 67.5% Page Views Per Visitor:
1.49 Daily Time on Site: 1:60
o Analysis: Geek.coms bounce rate is not in favor of the
website. The average bounce rate is about 50%, a good
bounce rate is in the range of 20-30%. However, their
bounce rate has decreased 7% in the past three months
according to Alexa statistics. A bounce rate is defined as

My Site: Geek.com
one page view. A website wants a lower bounce rate
because they want their audience to stay on their website
longer than just one page view. Ways to improve bounce
rates are to include tags and suggest related articles.
Geek.com already suggests related articles, however, they
do not have continuous scrolling, which can increase the
time spent on the site due to content continuously loading
for the user to digest. By implementing continuous scroll,
Geek.com could increase their bounce rate. The page
views per visitor on Geek.com have increased by 1%
versus the previous three months, according to Alexa, and
are now 1.49 per visitor. Once again, Geek.com would need
to increase their page views by implementing incentives to
look through the site more by suggested related articles,
continuous scroll, and tags. The daily time on the website
is 1:60, which has decreased by 4% compared to the
previous three months. This is where continuous scroll
would play a large part in keeping Geek.coms user
interested in the content and spending more time reading
through the news articles instead of scanning through the
titles.
o [ArsTechnica.com] Bounce Rate: 61.9% Page Views Per
Visitor: 1.92 Daily Time on Site: 3:03

My Site: Geek.com
o Analysis: The bounce rate of Ars Technica is slightly better
than Geek.com, however, it is still very poor compared to
what is considered a good bounce rate. The site already
has tags and refers its users to similar sites and lists the
latest news in the side bar, so they have made several
attempts at improving their page views. These efforts have
proved successful in the last three months; Ars Technicas
bounce rate has decreased by 6%. Geek.com does have
Ars Technica in the improvement of its bounce rate;
however, the site still has quite a bit of catching up to do.
The page views for Ars Technica is slightly better than
Geek.com, they have a 1.92 average for daily page views
per visit which is a 3% increase compared to the last three
months. Their daily time spent of site has also increased
slightly by 1% earning the site an average of 3:03 of time

spent on the site.

Media Kit/Advertiser Info Analysis:
o [Geek.com] Unique Visitors: 34.8 Million
o Analysis: Compared to the other websites, the monthly
unique visitors have skyrocketed. However, since this
website is owned by a company with many related sites,
the unique visitors statistic is most likely lumped with all
the related websites under the companies ownership. Since
Geek.com is labeled as a technology website in Ziff Daviss
Media Kit I used the statistic provided for monthly unique

My Site: Geek.com
visitors for technology sites. Compared to Quantcast the
unique visitors have increased significantly high from
228.5k to 34.8 million. This media kit seems to
overwhelmingly overestimate the individual website
statistics and lumps them all together to show a better
number. It is obvious that this statistic is not only from
Geek.coms statistics. The next statistics provided are
global and there isnt a clear indication between
technology, gaming and mens lifestyle. Once again, the
company has lumped all of its sites together to create a
more appealing statistic of 100.4 million monthly unique
visitors, 723.9 monthly page views, and 130.4 monthly
video views. Compared to the other statistics provided by
the other sources, these numbers severely overshoot the
estimations made by other sites. According to Ziff Daviss
media kit, Google Analytics provides the global
information, however, we do not know if these statistics
reflect all of their sites as a whole or how they are
categorized. The closest guess we have to Geek.coms
individual monthly unique visitors is the number provided
under technology, since Geek.com is categorized as a

technology site by the media kit.

Traffic Conclusions: Overall, Ars Technica beats out Geek.com
in statistics up until we take a look at Ziff Daviss media kit,

My Site: Geek.com
which overestimates the monthly unique visitors by lumping all
of their technology sites statistics together. If we take out the
outlier of uncertain data from Ziff Davis, Ars Technica beats
Geek.com in unique visitors, page views, and average daily time
spent on the site. Geek.com has some improvements to make in
order to beat the competing site on a basis of individual site
statistics. To draw in more traffic a site needs to constantly
update their content to be the latest news stories their users can
find, the goal is to have the breaking technology story first
before any other site.
Popularity Analysis:

MajesticSEO.com
o [Geek.com] No. of Referring Domains: 31,099 External
Backlinks: 926,560
o Analysis: The most popular referring domain to
Geek.com is the original company site Ziff Davis.
Educational and governmental sites are providing a
significant number of backlinks and domains. These
websites are generally reliable and Geek.com can
increase their traffic by being linked to from these
websites. The large number of outside domains and
backlinks indicates that Geek.com has a good online
connection from various different sites and can be easily
found using side door links.

My Site: Geek.com
o [ArsTechnia.com] No. of Referring Domains: 117,158
External Backlinks: 21,062,742
o Analysis: Compared to Geek.com, once again Ars
Technica overwhelmingly wins with statistics. The site
also has a significantly larger amount of educational and
governmental sites linking to Ars Technica. Having
reliable sites linking to yours increases the likeliness
that the users will use the links to visit your site. The
quantity of the sites is also overwhelmingly higher than
Geek.coms statistics indicating that the sites linking to
Ars Technica are reliable and users can trust the links
being provided for them. While Geek.com also has a
large list of reliable external links, they still need to gain

more to reach the level Ars Technica has achieved.

Social Media Analysis:
o Brand Based Success:
Geek.com

ArsTechnia.com

Facebook Page Likes

277,031

225,954

Twitter Followers

36.6K

729K

Google Plus Views

5,178,050

21,227,874

o Analysis: The only social media site that Geek.com wins

with is Facebook likes. Ars Technica beats Geek.com
once again on Twitter followers and Google Plus views.

My Site: Geek.com
Through this data, one can conclude that Geek.com
needs stronger presence in social media to overall help
improve their traffic popularity to being to better
compare with its competitors, especially that of Ars
Technica. Social media is a strong point in a sites traffic
and popularity. Since social media is such a large part of
todays society and used by almost everyone with a
computer, Geek.com needs to strengthen is social
media appearance and usage. The statistics so far have
show that Ars Technica has beaten Geek.com in traffic
and now popularity. To increase more traffic to the site
and side door visits social media is a strong way to
create new users and introduce them to the technology
news offered by Geek.com.
o Site Based Success:
Geek.com

ArsTechnia.com

455

25

50
1

134
5

Facebook page
specific likes
Twitter page shares
Google +1

o Analysis: Once again Ars Technica wins in all categories

except for Facebook. I used the featured articles on
each homepage to gather this information. Geek.com
has a strong Facebook community compared to Ars

My Site: Geek.com
Technica, however, they still need to strengthen in other
areas of social media, particularly Twitter and Google
plus. These sites are as popular as Facebook within the
scope of the audience. On Geek.coms articles there are
quick links for sharing them on social media sites,
included sites are Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus. These
links are also included on Ars Technica, however
Geek.com does a better job showing these quick tools,
as they are located at the bottom of the page and stay
consistent to adjust for scrolling. Ars Technical social
media tools are at the bottom of the page when
scrolling all the way down. Since many users skim these

links can be easy to miss.

Popularity Conclusions
o Geek.com has shown proficiency for social media
through the use of Facebook, beating out the competing
site with each statistic, but has been severely beaten in
all other social media sites. Since Facebook is the most
popular social networking site, it is understandable that
Geek.com has put most of its social networking focus
into Facebook. However, Twitter and Google Plus are still
largely useful when using them for public relations and
gaining recognition as a company. Geek.coms use of
social media quick links proves to be useful as they stay

My Site: Geek.com
consistently at the bottom of the web browser as the
page scrolls the links stay consistent. The site needs to
better promote their social media outlets to its users
instead of just making the share buttons and Facebook
page feature in the side bar obvious. Perhaps the site
could include prompts for the readers to use social
media throughout each article.
Success Conclusions:

Geek.com is a well-known name in the scene of technology

news due to its connections with Ziff Davis. The site has
created an easy to follow layout with strategically placed
advertisements and organized links following the reading
patterns of the websites users. They feature their top stories
well by placing them at the top of the webpage so they are
viewed first when directly visiting the website. Using the
hierarchy of information, Geek.com places their articles first
by popularity/importance, and then by upload date in
descending order. However, the site can take a few tips from
Ars Technica. Their layout consists of more content on each
page; instead of just a centerline of content the site uses
columns to organize their articles vertically by topic. The site
also has a useful feature where the user can pick the color
theme to be either light or dark adding to an elevated user

My Site: Geek.com
ability factor. The visual design of Geek.com is simpler, and
Ars Technica appears to be more condensed, but is organized
well vertically by including articles with specific topics and
tags to look up. Geek.com is a successful site compared to
other technology sites, but as always, there is always room for
improvement. Geek.coms main weakness is social media
usage. The site needs to promote their social media more and
not just focus on promoting the site on Facebook. Ars Technica
beats Geek.com on most statistics and has shown that they
have established a well-known social media base. This is also
due to the large number of backlinks to their site in which
Geek.com once again fallen behind. Geek.com is far from
being the top technology news site, but is working its way to
being more well known in its audiences demographic.
Overall, Ars Technica is a more successful technology news
site, but Geek.com is not far behind.