Kara Andersen

16 September 2014

My Site: Geek.com
WEB SITE OVERVIEW: Geek.com is an eighteen-year-old website that is dedicated to news
and reviews regarding an array of technology. According to the website, users can, . . . feel at
home in any of our topic areas including Apple, Gadgets, Games, Mobile, and Chips. They do
not focus on one specific piece of technology, but instead present stories and features about a
wide range of interests. This attracts a broader range of people when compared to a website that
is more specialized and has a narrower range of topics.
The website features tabbed content along the top of the site. The tabs listed are Apple,
Android, PS4, Science!, and Gaming. They also have sub-tabs for news, apps, culture, mobile,
tablets, deals, and Geek answers.
The Apple tab features news and information related to all Apple products. They are
currently featuring stories about the new phones that Apple released. In fact, every story on the
first page relates to either the new iPhone or the watch that Apple unveiled. The Android tab
features content about android phones and other non-Apple technologies. Many of the stories
that filled the page were related to Google products and releases. The PS4 page has content
solely related to the Playstation 4 and the games that you can play on that device. Much of their
page is dedicated to new game releases and critiques of new models of the Playstation. Topics
presented under the Science! tab are more varied in comparison to the content of other tabs.
Articles here ranged from Bacteria from raw honey may be the solution to antibiotic
resistance, to Why do dead alkaline batteries bounce?, to NASA is training Swarmie robots
to prepare alien worlds for our arrival. The subjects are vast, but most articles focus on
interesting new innovations in the world of science, and especially the technology related to
science, such as robots, nanotechnology, and microscopes. Under the Gaming tab, articles relate
to handheld games such as Nintendo, as well as game systems like the Xbox and Wii and the
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game a person could play on each. It also touches on online gaming some as well. Articles seen
under the PS4 tab are sometimes seen here as well.
The news tab features the most recent stories, some of which can be found under other
tabs as well, as the content matter of the article may be pertinent to more than one category.
Under the Apps tab, users will find articles featuring stories about apps and software. Most of
the articles pertain to new releases of software or apps, but some articles are related to glitches
or problems with programs as well. The heading under the Culture tab is Geek-cetera, which
relates to the fact that this page is full of articles of varying subject matter. While some articles
are also found under other tabs, most are unique to this tab. The variety on this page spans from
an article about a man who built a tweeting toilet, to one about someone who constructed a Lego
car with a giant excavator, to one about Microsoft creating a fragrance to advertise for a new
game. Articles under the Mobile tab pertain to all sorts of mobile devices, including phones and
tablets. Many of these articles are also featured on other pages, such as articles about the iPhone
that also appear on the Apple page. On the Tablets tab, many of the articles are similar or the
same as the articles on the Mobile tab, but there are some that are exclusive to the Tablet tab.
The articles cover all brands of tablets and discuss release dates, pros and cons, and glitches.
The Deals tab is unique because it does not have articles. Instead, it lists deals for different
pieces of technology. These deals link to other sites where the items are being sold. Accessing
the Deals tab gets a person codes that can be used to get discounts on different technologies. The
final tab, Geek Answers, is similar to a question and answer page. Geek.com takes questions
from their viewers and then answers them. Some examples of topics asked about include, Does
nuclear waste really glow, How do landslides work, and Why is cancer so hard to cure. Most
of the questions and answers on this page are related to science more than technology.
Competing Site: ZDNet.com is a competitor with Geek.com because of the similarity
not only of their content but also because of the similarity of their layout. ZDNet.com
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16 September 2014

CHROME
offers tabs for Internet, Mobility, Research, Windows, Enterprise Software, 3D Printing,
Innovation, and CXO (a page about executives in business and their relationship with
technology). The site also offers sub-tabs for white papers, hot topics, downloads,
reviews, and newsletters. Both sites offer much of the same information related to
technology. Although Geek.com incorporates more science into the articles they offer,
both sites still display much of the same, of-the-moment technology news. ZDNet.com
does offer users the chance to set up a free account to get more information and help
with IT decisions as well as alerts and newsletters, opinions and reviews, access to a
business resource library, and access to the communities on ZDNet.com and
TechRepublic.com. This offering may appeal to many people who are comparing the two
sites and might be a selling point for ZDNet.com over Geek.com.
DESIGN & LAYOUT ANALYSIS:
Browser Type: During the analysis of this website, I viewed it using Chromes browser.
I also looked at it using Firefox and Internet Explorer.

When looking at the home page, and other pages within Geek.com, using different
browsers, there is not a discernable difference in the page. Anti-aliasing problems are not
evident, which means that the font(s) look nice regardless of browser. The format of the
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16 September 2014

IE
Firefox
pages does not noticeably change between
browsers, which means that all of the
content has been formatted in a way that
assures that it will maintain its usability
between browsers, meaning that users of
the website, regardless of browser
preference, will have the same experience
on the site.



Monitor Resolution: The baseline resolution I am using to view Geek.com is
1366x768.

I also viewed Geek.com in 1024x768, a fairly common monitor resloution, and 800x600.
1366x768
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16 September 2014

It is clear that Geek.com has optimized its
display to be viewed at 1024x768 or
above. When viewing it at this resolution,
nothing is lost that was viewable at
1366x768. The extra margins that were
visible at 1366x768 simply disappear,
leaving all of the main screen, tabs, and
features viewable in the same way. At
800x600, users must scroll from side to
side to view all of the content. Although
all of the tabs are visible at 800x600,
none of the main content is, making it
less appealing to visitors. There is
nothing to draw you in to the website except for the large header above the tabs. Users must
scroll to find the home page articles, and when they are reading articles, often the must also
scroll side-to-
side to read
all of the
words. Below
is a
comparison
of what is
viewable on
Geek.coms
main page at
1024x768
800x600
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16 September 2014

Above the Fold: The navigation tabs, search
box, advertisement, and headline of the feature
story are all above the fold. These are all key
components that keep a user engaged and
draw them further into the site.
Upper Left: The upper left corner
includes the logo for the site, as well as the
tabs for Apple, News, Apps, and Android.
Since these might be the most visited tabs
on the site, the upper left corner is a good
place to put them.
different resolutions.
1366x768
1024x768
800x600





Layout


Header: The header
contains navigation
tabs for the site that
allow users to move
from page to page.
The header stays at
the top of the page as
users scroll down the
page.
Feature: The feature
portion of the website
displays the days top
story. It changes from
day to day, but it does
not change each time
the page is reloaded.
You can tell it is the
feature because of the
bigger picture and the
distinct format.
Ads: There are three sections
with advertisements on this
page. All three ads change
whenever the page is
refreshed. The only ad that can
be seen at all three screen
resolutions is the top banner
ad. There are also occasional
ads that appear before you can
get to the next page, if you stay
on the site long enough. The
ads are also located around key
points of the site: the top, by
the navigation; underneath the
feature story, and around the
social media and email area on
the left.
Social Media:
This section allows
users to follow
Geek.com on
Facebook, subscribe
to email newsletters,
or follow Geek.com
on Twitter. This
allows users to
become more
involved with the
site and advertises
Geek.com on social
media by way of
word-of-mouth.
Body: This is the main section of the
page that displays articles. There are
fifteen separate articles displayed here
from all of the different tabs on the site.
These change daily.
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16 September 2014













Body
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16 September 2014





























Footer: The footer, located at the bottom-most part
of the page, includes links for About, Contact, Jobs,
Archives, Glossary, Forums, and Advertise. It also
has external links to PCMag.com, ExtremeTech,
ComputerShopper, LogicBuy, and Toolbox.com,
which are all websites that are run by Ziff Davis, LLC,
which is also linked to in the footer. The links to the
Privacy Policy and Terms of Use are also listed here.
Body
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16 September 2014

TRAFFIC ANALYSIS:
Traffic Source: Quantcast.com
o Geek.com: Unique Visitors: 451,812
o Analysis: When looking at the overall average and comparing it to the past six
months, it is lower than the high of 683,582 in April. The average for the month
of July was 228,535, which means a 67% decrease in visitors over the past 3
months for which there is data. Julys visitor average is 50% less than Geek.coms
average unique visitor count. During the past year, Julys numbers are the lowest
that Geek.com has seen. There are two highest spikes in visitors in the past year;
in November 2013 and April 2014. The two lowest points of the last year were in
Febray 2014 and July 2014.





Traffic Source: Alexa.com
o Geek.com:
Bounce Rate: 67.4% | Page Views/Visitor: 1.5 | Daily Time on Site: 2 min.
435,536
228,535
682,582
234,558
618,589
July 2014 Feb 2014
Nov
2013
Aug 2013
Apr
2014
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16 September 2014

o Analysis: Geek.coms bounce rate of 67.4% is 17% higher than the average
bounce rate of 50%. Although the bounce rate is on the higher side, it is down 8%
over the past three months, which is an improvement for the site. The page views
per visitor is also up 2% over the past 3 months. The daily time on the site has
decreased by 4% when compared to the past 3 months. 35.5% of Geek.coms
visitors are from the United States, while 12.9% of the sites visitors are from
India, and 7.4% are from the United Kingdom.
o ZDNet.com
Bounce Rate: 70.1% | Page Views/Visitor: 1.67 | Daily Time on Site: 1.56 min.
o Analysis: ZDNet.coms bounce rate of 70.1% is higher than the average bounce
rate of 50%. Even though it is above the average by 20%, it has gone down 6%
over the past 3 months. ZDNet.coms page views per visitor has decreased 1.67%
over the past 3 month, The daily time on ZDNet.com has gone down by 3% over
the past 3 months and is roughly the same as Geek.com. 34.5% of the visitors to
ZDNet.com are from the United States, which is only 1% less than the visitors to
Geek.com from the United States. ZDNet.com and Geek.com both have 12.9% of
their visitors from India.
Media Kit/Advertiser Info Analysis:
o Geek.com
o Analysis: No direct info exists about Geek.coms media kit. The company that
owns Geek.com, along with other brands similar to Geek.com, offers general
information about their sites data. This information is generalized in that it
includes numbers from all of the sites that Ziff Davis owns. While this might be
fairly representative of any one of their sites, including Geek.com, it is both
misleading and unclear. In Technology, Ziff Davis says that the average number
of monthly unique visitors as 34.8 million and the average number of monthly
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16 September 2014

visitors at gaming sites as 13.6 million. While Geek.com would be considered
both a technology and a gaming site, these numbers say nothing of what
Geek.coms monthly unique visitor count is. It would be better for interested
advertisers to check out statistics on other sites, such as Quantcast, Compete, or
Alexa to find out a more accurate representation of monthly statistics if they
would like to advertise on Geek.com.
Traffic Conclusions:
o When comparing Geek.com and ZDNet.com, Geek.com has a better bounce rate
by 3%, and while that is fairly comparable, Geek.com is still keeping a wider
margin by improving by a greater percentage over a 3 month period. While
ZDNet.coms page views per visitor is actually slightly higher than the page views
per visitor at Geek.com, ZDNet.coms page views per visitor is decreasing while
Geek.coms is increasing slowly. Geek.com and ZDNet.com have nearly the same
average daily time on their site. Geek.coms site traffic has seen a sharp decrease
over the past four months. Overall, Geek.com has a steady stream of visitors to
their site, so even though it is down over the past four years, it is coming down
from a spike, and has returned to closer to its usual average per month.
POPULARITY ANALYSIS
Link Popularity Source: Majestic SEO
o Geek.com: No. of referring domains/backlinks: 31,099
o Analysis: There were 3 sites that were the top referring domains to
Geek.com; ZiffDavis.com, Wikipedia.com, and PCMag.com. ZiffDavis is the
company that owns Geek.com and theirs are the top two backlinks, from their
homepage. The Wikipedia article that links to Geek.com is one about
Ransomware (a type of malware) and uses the anchor text, disk encrypting
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16 September 2014

cryptolocker malware demands $300 to decode your files. It links to an
article on Geek.om with the same title. The other two top backlinks are from
PCMag.com. The links come from PCMag.coms Best Deals page and their
Business page. Although none of these are .org, .gov, or .edu addresses, they
are still fairly reputable because of their content area and subject matter. It
should be noted, however, that PCMag.com is also owned by ZiffDavis.
o ZDNet.com: No. of referring domains/backlinks: 151,812
o Analysis: Although ZDNet.com boasts 80% more referring domains than
Geek.com, Addthis.com has four of the links on the top five list for backlinks.
The other top domain is a link on CDNet.com to a download available at
ZDNet.com. The links that refer to ZDNet.com are not very reputable,
especially since Addthis.com is a site where you can get free sharing tools for
your website. The links that come from this site are just from links to quotes
from ZDNet.com about enhancing website popularity. In short, there is not a
variety of links to ZDNet.com. Most of them come from the same site.
Social Media Analysis
o Brand Based Success
Geek.com ZDNet.com
Facebook Page Likes 276,916 217,232
Twitter Followers 36,635 199,728
Google +1s 206,128 9,639

o Analysis: Geek.com has a higher number of Facebook page likes, by 20%.
However, ZDNet.com has 80% more Twitter followers than Geek.com. It is
very surprising that there is such a sharp difference in followers for these two
sites. However, there is a similar situation, if not an even more stark
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16 September 2014

difference, in Google +1s. Geek.com has 95% more +1s than ZDNet.com. It is
hard to say exactly why this is, but Geek.coms last Google+ post was four
days ago, while ZDNet.com had not posted for over a month. If a company is
not active with their chosen social networks, they will not gain followers
readily as companies who are actively using their chosen social media
platform(s).
o Site Based Success
Geek.com ZDNet.com
Facebook Page-Specific Likes 12 89
Twitter Page Shares 31 179
Comments 2 20

Analysis: Both of the pages that were compared were written on September 15
th
.
ZDNet.coms users appear to be more engaged with social media than Geek.coms
users, in all outlets, even in comments. One reason this might be is that the links
that allow a user to share things on Geek.com scroll along the bottom of the page
as a person scrolls down the page. They can kind of blend in, expecially if a
person is not actively searching for them. On ZDNet.com, the buttons for sharing
are along the side and are in different colors so they stand out more
Popularity Conclusions:
o Geek.com has a better level of referring domains and a better variety of backlinks.
However, when compared to ZDNet.com, Geek.com lacks in the area of social
media involvement. Overall, they have lower involvement on Twitter and a lower
number of shares of a similar article on social media sites and a lower level of
involvement in the comments section. However, Geek.com did have dramatically
more followers on Facebook and Google+ because they keep their sites current.
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16 September 2014

SUCCESS CONCLUSIONS:
o Overall, Geek.com has a more successful site than ZDNet.com. Geek.coms
bounce rate has continued to fall over the past 3 months, and their page views per
visitor and the daily time spent on the site have seen improvements over the past
3 months. The same cannot be said for ZDNet.com, which seems to be struggling
a bit to keep its users on the site. Even though ZDNet.com appears to have a
higher level of involvement on social media, Geek.com actually has more
involvement on their actual social media pages, even though the amount that
their content is shared from their site is lower than ZDNet.com. Geek.com has
optimized their site for viewing at different resolutions and for viewing across
different browsers. There are no glaring functionality problems, and all
formatting carries from one browser to the next. Overall, Geek.com is a fairly
user-friendly site that is doing well when compared to similar sites around the
Internet. While Geek.com has room for improvement in the area of social media
involvement and traffic, they are doing better than many sites of a similar nature.