GUWonder

Sounds more like View from the Wing than OMAAT. Why isn’t TPG as much into the Jerry Springer-esque tantalization as some of the major Boardingarea.com blogs?

Raffles

You need to blame BA for that, I think.

TPG is SEO driven - they don't really care about regular readers and indeed find them a pain as they are at 5/24, have hit their Amex lifetime cap etc - and no-one actually searches for clickbait nonsense. You only click it if a link is presented to you.

(It is also hard to rank on Google for stuff outside your sphere of interest. We published a piece two weeks ago relating to an Amex offer in the UK but which is not travel related. Despite our strong Google rank normally and the fact that this is the best article on the web on this particular issue, my piece is literally not in the first 10 pages of search results.)

Hence the BA home page, which encourages you to click through instead of reading some other more useful story.

GUWonder

When it comes to the BA-hosted blogs that are the most popular, do you think that that BoardingArea arrangement currently depresses their liquidity-event value if the blogger decides to sell off the blog?

Raffles

Realistically, who could sell? For better or worse, the sites are all personality driven and that makes a big ticket sale hard. Not impossible, but hard. FM potentially, because Nick is 'staff' already so would presumably be happy to stick around under a new boss for the right deal. Not many other sites in that boat. Loss of the founder's voice is more important than the impact of coming off BA or not.

Speedscu

Did Ben just do a Mea Culpa on the last two years of almost nothing bur credit card posting? And are his new trips an attempt to regain readership?

joecool1885

He recently discussed this.
Link

Speedscu

That link is exactly what made me ask the question. Do you think he hemorrhaged readers?

pstm91

We'll never know, but I for one appreciate that he at least appears to be listening to reader's comments and complaints and factoring them into his decision making. His reviews are what built his readership, so if he's shifting back to that then I see no reason to complain.

fartoomanyusers

A mea culpa isn't required if your parent is going through terminal cancer.

joecool1885

Possibly. I honestly rarely read his reviews. Unless it's an aspirational property I'm interested in. Just rely on him for the latest news, and appreciate that the comments section stays open (is why I very rarely venture to TPGs page anymore)

Even if he lost readers though, the pandemic could have had a heavy hand in that.

Raffles

Ben was probably more SEO dependent than most, purely because of his unrivalled trip report volumes. Clearly those numbers hit rock bottom.

At our lowest point we lost 75% of our Google traffic. We are now back to around 80% of our 2019 volumes.

The overall impact on us was manageable though as we have a loyal core base. Total readership is up over 20% during covid (revenue clearly sharply down).

labdoctor

Another clickbait article...I had thought Lucky's Anglophobic tendencies had mellowed somewhat until now
https://onemileatatime.com/insights/...rvice-charges/

DC9

Why can’t the knockers just unsubscribe if OMAAT is not what they are after? It’s as though they are unable move on. 🤷‍♂️

labdoctor

You'd rather OMAAT misinforms its readers without being called out? The practice he outlines in his article is virtually unheard of in the UK yet he implies it's an endemic issue...

GUWonder

Without biting on the above bait of calling an Anglophone American out as an Anglophobe, I will say that the OMAAT article does serve consumers. It highlights how a scummy practice is becoming increasingly prevalent in the hospitality sector -- this time in London (England) -- and to be out on the watch for this. Bad practices tend to spread unless and until the government puts an end to it; and unless and until there is any government action to put a stop to such practices, consumers' best defense to such practices is information.