The [url=<a href=“https://www.trackalytics.com/website/collegeconfidential.com/%5D%5Bu%5D%5Bcolor=blue%5Danalytics%5B/u%5D%5B/color%5D%5B/url”>https://www.trackalytics.com/website/collegeconfidential.com/]analytics[/url] show CC’s daily pageviews are ~246,000. That seems like a lot until you look at mid-February when they were over 293,000. In Feb. 2018 they were over 560,000. Both 2017 and 2016 show numbers quite similar to 2018.
What happened between 2018 and 2020 that caused a drop of over 50%? And what’s happened in the last month or two that’s driving the newest decline? You’d think, given the current situation, that usage would be increasing. People are home. They’re worried about their health, finances, and families. It seems logical that parents with college aged children would be flocking to this website, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. It looks like usage has dropped by 16% in just the last month alone.
Also, the forum directory is pathetic. The old one had everything on one page. In the new format, it’s hard to find forums that you know exist, let alone if you’ve never visited this site before.
The last revamp really did the site in. You just cannot find some subforums (and if you are new to CC you’ll never find them). I’ve been through improvements on other message boards and it always takes people a little while to adjust, but they do and in the end one finds that the change is an improvement. In CCs case the changes were not merely stylistic and made the user experience much less enjoyable and easy. Now, after several months, we can say that the changes resulted in a site that is clearly worse than it was before.
I came back after a long hiatus due to the present situation leaving me with some more free time. I notice a greater proportion of posts from senior members (“DON’T TAKE ON DEBT! GO FOR THE CHEAPEST OPTION!”) and a lot fewer posts from random high school kids playing the chance me game. I think the site has become unfriendly for newbs in the last few years. This may be the natural life cycle of a forum site, or it may not be. Also I don’t care for the redesign either.
And the ad trackers… grrr… I am literally being chased by a site for down comforters which I think I looked at three years ago. Every time I get rid of it, it pops up again. Seems like MANY more ads than before the redesign…
I agree it’s difficult to find things. it didn’t use to be. But I guess the more we hunt, the more page views there are. I assume more clicks translates to more dollars?
The redesign last year resulted in the exodus of some of the long time, quality posters. This has reduced the quantity and the quality of information available on the site, which has greatly decreased the traffic. I go back periodically to some threads I bookmarked from 2017 and 2018, and the number and quality of responses is incredible!
I noticed that too, 1NJParent. How welcoming a place is depends on more than just the people who visit. And that might explain the recent drop.
In the last few months there seems to be a steady stream of threads by “experts” and guest posters. I don’t remember seeing that before. I wonder how much that artificially inflates the usage numbers.
I’m in Covid 19 overload and it seems like the majority of the activity is on the multitude of covid threads. That or the I have a full ride at A but should I go into a boat load of debt for better school B. Other than a handful of threads, I’m mostly checked out. The fact that I have to log in four times on my cell phone every time I want to get on, plus the above, is not a great formula for success.
@Mwfan1921 Yes but most of those reddit forums are poorly moderated or not moderated at all. There is a huge amount o f misinformation and bad advice there. I am pretty sure that when an applicant makes a mistake the college is not going to accept the excuse “Someone on reddit told me to do it this way.”
Also redditers can vote down a comment they don’t like until it is not seen. So honest, accurate advice (like UCLA is worth $100,000 in debt for a humanities degree) that students don’t like will disappear.
CC advice does not dstroy dreams, it destroys fantasies.
I discovered this thread by noticing, just by happenstance, that the last link on the “highlights” list on the right is “most helpful posts - and this was one of them!! Love the irony. I never go into the College confidential cafe- its usually where the kids post and it had in the past been a wild and crazy place! Though the absolute best thread was one her. decades ago called something like “the worst essay titles”. It was hysterical. I miss the clever banter and quick wit which was such a big draw to this site.
I am glad someone brought this up. Since the upgrade the website is slow and hard to navigate/search. On the mobile app, I have to login every time I want to use it.
Hard to believe such a great resource has become so hard to use.
I would be happy with the pre-upgrade CC…had absolutely no problems and used he website/mobile app constantly.
I don’t think it’s unusual for posters to caution students about the risks of high debt. The loans that were available when this site started aren’t the same as what’s available now. So posters who have come back after a hiatus may see different advice then when they were first here.
I do wonder what brings them back and if they’ll bother to stick around though. I was on a perfectly nice thread this morning typing up a comment to the OP when it just disappeared. Another technical glitch? I don’t know. The site seems to have some serious issues lately. It’s not intuitive and the search function is horrible, and those are just the surface problems. I wonder if the heavy drop in usage is an indication of just how serious those issues are. Where are the PR people? Normally, when usage plummets somebody tries to find out what’s causing the problem and attempts to do something to fix it. Advertisers go where the people are. If they aren’t here, where did they all go?