Boing Boing 2006 Domain Links
By: Jeff Clark Date: Sun, 07 Jan 2007
I've taken a look at the outgoing links from Boing Boing over the course of 2006. The total number of outgoing links is 22,714 and these are distributed across 8,081 unique domains. This astounding breadth of sources goes a long way to explaining the great diversity of material on the site. They truly are a directory of wonderful things.
The following table shows the top 25 'high-level' domains (not counting Boing Boing itself):
| Rank | Domain | Links | % |
| 1 | blogspot.com | 818 | 4.0% |
| 2 | flickr.com | 635 | 3.1% |
| 3 | amazon.com | 498 | 2.5% |
| 4 | wikipedia.org | 475 | 2.3% |
| 5 | youtube.com | 390 | 1.9% |
| 6 | google.com | 258 | 1.3% |
| 7 | wired.com | 253 | 1.2% |
| 8 | makezine.com | 225 | 1.1% |
| 9 | typepad.com | 211 | 1.0% |
| 10 | nytimes.com | 186 | 0.9% |
| 11 | eff.org | 167 | 0.8% |
| 12 | craphound.com | 165 | 0.8% |
| 13 | bbc.co.uk | 164 | 0.8% |
| 14 | npr.org | 156 | 0.8% |
| 15 | livejournal.com | 136 | 0.7% |
| 16 | cnn.com | 123 | 0.6% |
| 17 | xeni.net | 110 | 0.5% |
| 18 | yahoo.com | 107 | 0.5% |
| 19 | tinynibbles.com | 94 | 0.5% |
| 20 | neatorama.com | 93 | 0.5% |
| 21 | blogs.com | 92 | 0.5% |
| 22 | digg.com | 85 | 0.4% |
| 23 | iftf.org | 76 | 0.4% |
| 24 | chaoskitty.com | 75 | 0.4% |
| 25 | worth1000.com | 69 | 0.3% |
Together these top 25 domains account for about 28% of all the outgoing links from boing boing - again excluding the links to their own site. Note however that several of these are actually weblog hosting domains and really represent many distinct sites. For example, the domain blogspot.com actually represents 407 distinct weblogs. The top 25 blogspot sites are:
| Rank | Top Blogspot Sites | Links |
| 1 | positiveapeindex.blogspot.com | 46 |
| 2 | reversecowgirlblog.blogspot.com | 33 |
| 3 | bibliodyssey.blogspot.com | 17 |
| 4 | johnkstuff.blogspot.com | 17 |
| 5 | hooptyrides.blogspot.com | 13 |
| 6 | hubber.blogspot.com | 12 |
| 7 | easydreamer.blogspot.com | 10 |
| 8 | swapatorium.blogspot.com | 10 |
| 9 | jollysocratic.blogspot.com | 10 |
| 10 | bbemporium.blogspot.com | 10 |
| 11 | upgradetravel.blogspot.com | 10 |
| 12 | watchismo.blogspot.com | 9 |
| 13 | spluch.blogspot.com | 9 |
| 14 | izreloaded.blogspot.com | 9 |
| 15 | musicthing.blogspot.com | 8 |
| 16 | bldgblog.blogspot.com | 8 |
| 17 | dannysland.blogspot.com | 7 |
| 18 | mazenkerblog.blogspot.com | 6 |
| 19 | dooooooom.blogspot.com | 6 |
| 20 | todaysinspiration.blogspot.com | 6 |
| 21 | operationeden.blogspot.com | 6 |
| 22 | indiauncut.blogspot.com | 5 |
| 23 | recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com | 5 |
| 24 | jergames.blogspot.com | 5 |
| 25 | nfttu.blogspot.com | 5 |
Similarly, the typepad.com domain represents 77 distinct sites, livejournal.com 75, and blogs.com 21. This suggests that the real top 25 distinct sites covers less than 28% - probably more like 22% with the most common, flickr.com yielding only about 3%. This is truly a long tail distribution.
The graph below shows the same top 25 domains and the distribution across the various authors. The dark green bars show which domains are linked to at a higher frequency for the various authors relative to the total links they created. So for example, Xeni linked to flickr.com and wikipedia.org more than any other site but the darker green colours on other bars show that her links to nytimes.com, npr.org, xeni.net, tinynibbles.com, and chaoskitty.com are proportionally very high compared to the other authors.
For Cory the relatively high domains are eff.org, craphound.com, digg.com, and worth1000.com. The only obvious site that Mark links to at a relatively higher rate than the other authors is makezine.com . David favours iftf.org, cnn.com, bbc.co.uk, and perhaps makezine.com. The dark red show rates low relative to the other authors. The only obvious cases are Cory links relatively less frequently to google.com, and wikipedia.org than the others and David relatively less frequently to flickr.com.
I've checked a time series showing when the links occurred to the top 10 domains and found no interesting patterns. There was a fair amount of fluctuation over the course of the year but no obvious trends.
Some related posts:
Boing Boing Analysis - Part 1 (Posts Over Time by Author)
Boing Boing Analysis - Part 2 (Posts Breakdown over Day of Week)
Boing Boing Analysis - Part 3 (Images/Post over time by Author)
Boing Boing Analysis - Part 4 (Outbound Links/Post and Acronym use by Author)
Boing Boing Analysis - Part 5 (Topic Hierarchy)
Boing Boing Analysis - Part 6 (Topic Emphasis by Author)
Boing Boing Analysis - Part 7 (Images/Post for Topics and Topic Share over Time)
Boing Boing Analysis - Part 8 (Incoming Links)
Boing Boing 2006 Statistical Analysis