Is SourceSecurity.com the Biggest Security Website Globally?

SourceSecurity.com claims to be the highest trafficked website in the security industry but no one we talked with ever says they use it. How can that be?

We do think they are telling the truth about their statistics. For instance, in their mediapack video, they log in to their analytics service and show the recorded results from Google. What we found most interesting was that almost all the traffic (about 115,000 monthly visitors) come from search traffic (85%) but only 9% come from direct traffic. See the image below:

Lots of people go to this site but very few people are regular readers. This makes sense because the site mainly consists of datasheets and press releases cut and pasted from manufacturer websites. This works well for search engine results put poor for attracting humans directly.

To give a sense of comparison, while we have less than half of SourceSecurity's traffic, we have 300% the amount of direct visitors (an indicator of a higher level of ongoing interest from readers).

While of limited use for readers, SourceSecurity is popular amongst advertisers because of its high traffic levels and relatively low ad prices (see their Promotional Pricing [link no longer available] which tends to be half the price of many trade magazines).

As a final note, it is a common but controversial practice across the web to build websites with the sole goal of optimizing search engine rankings while providing little added value. It is also popular as it can be highly profitable, despite the lack of significant end user value.