Hostels often get pitches from travel bloggers and companies. Sometimes it's difficult to tell whether a proposal is reasonable or not. Here are some quick ways to get a basic idea about whether a website is popular or not.
Alexa.com keeps track of the most popular websites online. It's very inaccurate, but it can give you a general idea about whether a website is popular or not.
Some people will say that "Alexa Rank is useless", but that isn't entirely accurate. Alexa Rank is highly innaccurate and can be manipulated, but it's still has uses.
Example: Alexa Rank for Hostelworld.com
Similar to Alexa Rank.
Example: Compete Rank for Hostelworld.com
Another ranking tool. Learn more here.
You can find out information about who links to a website with Moz's Open Site Explorer.
If you have Linux or Mac, you can get WHOIS data by opening a terminal and typing: whois example.com. If the output goes off the screen, you can use this instead: whois example.com | less.
Otherwise try whois.net.
Check the Twitter followers and interactions.
Check the Facebook followers and interactions.
Check other social networks and interactions.
If the company buys online advertising, you can search for them on SpyFu.com.
If you download Search Status for Firefox, you can get the Alexa Rank and other data just by clicking a button in Firefox. If you use Search Status, it's important to set the correct options:
On the privacy tab, remove everything from the "Excluded URIs" section, and check the box next to: "Only get rankings after clicking on bar, using secure connection if possible". That will set the tool to only fetch a website's ranking data when you click on the icon.
9 years
I would also pay attention to the actual engagement of the social network friends and followers. Many sites are buying dummy followers or have acquired their through ads but then these people aren't interested in the content provided. So have a look how many likes a typical FB post of such a site gets, does it get any comments etc. If it's a blog, there must be comments on the articles. Blog that does not engage any discussion is not vital even if its traffic stats are high.
9 years
It's definitely good to check the interactions. Different sites have various tools. On Twitter, you can use the "to these accounts" field on the advanced search page.
Example search for tweets to Hostelworld: https://twitter.com/search?q=to%3Ahostelworld&src=typd&lang=en
9 years
When confronted with this, the first thing I look for is 'signs of life' - are their FB and Twitter profiles active? Are people interacting with them?
I also apply the same to the blog. Are they consistently posting? Do they get comments?
Having said all this, I'd recommend in nearly all cases taking bloggers if there is an empty bed around. If it is peak season, and they'd cost you money, it's definitely worth checking their stats, but without being overly picky.
Given that these links are typically worth $150-200 - that's what it will cost you to go out and pay someone to find that blogger and convince them to stay - I would generally recommend that people say yes.
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