compete with this?

Now, I'm a big fan of Compete (especially after this), but I had to scratch my head about the top search keywords that send people to reddit.

reddit (sure, that's expected)
beastiality

Someone on reddit noticed this too and submitted it earlier today. So it's technically bestiality (an astute redditor pointed this out) but it still seems like an odd search for getting to reddit.

Maybe it's not just reddit, though, perhaps our competitors suffer from a similarly bizarre search analysis. I wasn't totally shocked by the Jennifer Love Hewitt attention on digg, but what did surprise me was the overlap with the recently MSNBC-acquired startup, Newsvine.

digg.com: jennifer love hewitt bikini pictures, digg
newsvine.com: jennifer love hewitt fat, newsvine

Poor Jennifer. You can tell from the search queries that Newsvine-readers evidently don't mince words.

Fortunately, we don't get very much traffic from search, but I don't think we'll be using Compete's Search Analytics as "the starting point to build search marketing campaigns that drive site traffic and increase sales" on reddit. You couldn't pay me enough to design those ads.

reddit still not as popular as porn

Since it got reported on TechCrunch, it must be news. Compete, the cherished alternative to the statistical joke that is Alexa, published the biggest gainers and losers of 2007.

reddit scored a coveted spot on the "positive change" list, just behind LinkedIn, with a +1033% change in monthly uniques. Granted, we got steamrolled by redtube.com, but it's probably not worth trying to compete with web 2.0 porn.

I'm obviously quite pleased with the growth. According to our internal tools, we'd been seeing quite a bit of it all year long. It really took off in mid-October, though -- the drankkit effect cannot be ignored. Now that we have Compete's validation, I feel comfortable promoting this traffic boon: free beer is good. Let the web 2.0 open bar nights begin!