Here I have analyzed SneakerBarDetroit.com.

1. Sneaker Bar Detroit Content & Traffic Analysis
Industry Overview
The collectible-sneaker industry is filled with people who view shoes as investments. The
internet, and sites like eBay, began the reselling of collectible sneakers but platforms such as
StockX have completely turned it into a business (Griffith, 2019). In this industry, there are
people called “sneakerheads.” This term can be used to describe someone who collects, trades or
just simply loves sneakers. Rashone Bryant, also known as Afrikan Caesar, described the
sneakerhead world as a “melting pot.” I love this description because it is such a diverse group of
people all coming together for “their love of the gym shoe” (Bryant, 2014). Though some may
think these are just shoes, there is a difference between a collectible sneaker and any normal
athletic shoe. After looking through some resale sites, I would describe a collectible sneaker as
either a limited-edition shoe or a special release/partnership.
The industry has many different sites that resell and trade collectible sneakers, and some of the
major brands are beginning to see the large impact they are having on consumers. Brands like
Nike, for example, have no plans or interest in partnering with resellers but Foot Locker has
stepped up and invested $100 million in GOAT Group, another reselling site. What was once
“deemed a quirky niche for enthusiasts” is now a booming industry filled with potential to grow
even more (Griffith, 2019). How these sites work is they are basically the middleman between
buyers/sellers. For example, on StockX, customers can get on and place a bid for the pair of
shoes they want, or they can immediately purchase at the lowest asking price. Then, the seller of
the shoes will ship them to StockX to be authenticated. Once the shoes are proved authentic,
StockX releases the money to the seller and ships the shoes to the buyer. This ensures that every
pair sold is real and in great condition (“How StockX Works: Bid, Ask, Buy, Sell.”).

2. A recent article written by David Moin explains how the sneaker industry is doing in the current
market. According to different sources, the trends show an increase in sneaker sales. StockX, for
example, is having trouble keeping up with the growth and demand. StockX had to shut down
their physical drop-off sites due to COVID-19 and does not feel comfortable opening them back
up just yet (Moin, 2020). COVID-19 has been the biggest concern this year for the sneaker
market, but it looks as though sales are back on the rise. According to Matt Powell, Vice
President and Senior Industry Advisor at NPD, the year started off well with an increase in
athletic shoe sales in both January and February, but when the pandemic hit in March sales went
down by about 40-50% (Powell, 2020). For sales to recover, they needed new releases of shoes
in the industry. On May 30, the “Flint” Jordan 13 was released and became the fastest-selling
shoe in StockX history (Dunne, 2020). In June, a 25% increase in sales happened after many
limited-edition releases. Although this jump in sales helped, Powell still feels the trends will be
weak for the remainder of the year (Powell). While many sneaker brands have suffered declines
in their overall trends due to some reliance on physical stores, online resellers such as StockX
have had record breaking months in sales (Dunne, 2020).
Company Information
Sneaker Bar Detroit is a blog site focused on the release of sneakers based out of Detroit,
Michigan. They keep customers up to date on the latest sneaker releases by uploading news and
information content daily. SBD currently has three employees, Mario Briguglio, the
founder/editor in chief, Alin Tinuic, the managing editor/advertising/tech, and Rashone Bryant,
also known as Afrikan Caesar, an editor and podcast host (“About SBD”). On a Zoom call with
Caesar, he mentioned that SBD has a reputation for getting content published in a timely manner
compared to other sites. He also mentioned that SBD makes money from advertisements, selling

3. merchandise, a podcast, and partnerships with links to StockX. According to the about section of
SneakerBarDetroit.com, their mission is to make sure their readers get quality content without
any bias towards the different brands (“About SBD”).
Brand Trust & Authority
When looking at whether or not SBD is an authority on its topic, the first thing to look at is who
they have working for them. Their founder, Mario Briguglio, has had a passion for sneakers
since age 6, so he has known the industry for the majority of his life (“About SBD”). Their
contributor, Caesar, says he has been a sneakerhead since 1997 (“About SBD”). Who better to
run the site than sneakerheads? As for their content, Caesar said on a Zoom call that they get
their information directly from the brands themselves, such as Nike, Adidas, Yeezy, etc. This is
as credible as content can get. While their content is credible coming directly from the brands, it
is not unique. After looking through their content in depth, I found that many sneaker blogs,
including SBD, use the same content.
Comparing SneakerBarDetroit.com and SneakerNews.com on social media, we can see in the
chart provided below that Sneaker News is much more well-known on twitter (Urgo). SBD has

4. had a steady number of followers without any big jumps in numbers while Sneaker News has
had more of an uphill climb in their number of followers. Sneaker News has much more of a
following than SBD on YouTube and Instagram as well.
Lastly, I looked at how many trusted news sources have written about SBD. This is important to
analyze because if a trusted news source mentions your company, they not only will drive traffic
to our site, but this also gives more credibility. Feedpsot mentions SBD as number 9 on their list
of top 60 sneaker websites and blogs, HiConsumption lists SBD on their top 15 sneaker blogs,
and as Caesar mentioned on the Zoom call, Complex named SBD number 19 on their top 25 best
sneaker blogs (“Top 60 Sneaker Websites & Blogs For Sneaker Enthusiasts in 2020.”) (“The 15
Best Blogs For Serious Sneaker Heads.”) (Engvall, 2020). I noticed while looking through
several trusted sources that Sneaker News was listed more often. I think this is because although
SBD is credible, they are less known than Sneaker News.
Competing Site
SneakerNews.com is a competing site for SBD because they are both blogs that focus on the
release of new sneakers. SBD began in 2011 while Sneaker News was founded in 2006. Both
sites contribute information about upcoming sneaker releases and have headers on their
navigation bars for Jordan, Yeezy, and Sneaker releases with a dropdown bar for more brands
(“Sneaker Bar Detroit (SBD): Sneaker News / Release Info.”) (“Jordans, Release Dates &
More.”). Something Caesar mentioned in Zoom was that Sneaker News had SneakerCon, an
event where sneakerheads can gather to showcase their collections. He said that this was a big
reason Sneaker News had more of a following, they had more of an experience. Caesar said it
best, “experience outweighs information.”

5. Quality Content Assessment
• Content Overview: Sneaker Bar Detroit’s main source of content is information
about new releases. They post several times daily including photos and text along
with links to buy the shoes. They provide text about the shoes, their release date,
the price, and any other important information the reader would need. Under their
“Latest News” section of the site, they posted 20 times in one day, and 7 times the
next day. This number fluctuates, but as you can see, they release information
often (“Sneaker Bar Detroit (SBD): Sneaker News / Release Info.”). One thing I
noticed when looking through the site is that there are no time stamps on their
posts, only the date. This makes me question whether they release many posts at
once, spread them out evenly throughout the day, or simply release them as the
information from the brands come in. If I were to guess based off what Caesar
talked about, I would say they release the content as soon as it is ready from the
brands.
• Credible/Unique Content: Having credible and unique content is important to a
site for their readers to trust the information being put out. As mentioned before,
Caesar said the content they release comes directly from the brands themselves,
making it very credible. Unique content is content that is only available on your
website and is not duplicated on other sites. By doing a quick Google search of
some of the text from an article on SBD, I found that nine other websites had the
exact same article. This led me to run another search on a different article and I
got 183 results with that text. I also ran a Google search for text on Sneaker News
and the first time I did this it came up with one result, Sneaker News. After this I

6. ran another search on Sneaker News and found 899 results. This tells me that
SBD’s content is not unique, and due to the high number of results on Google, I
can assume this is a common practice in the industry of sneaker blogs. While this
is not necessarily something that would make a reader not trust the site, because
the content is still credible, I think writing their own opinions or thoughts on the
releases might give their site that extra edge they need.
Traffic Analysis
• Visit Analysis
SneakerBarDetroit.com SneakerNews.com
3-month Average Monthly Visits 2.806 Million 5.795 Million
3-month Average Unique Visitors 1.384 Million 2.476 Million
Visits per Unique Visitor 2.03 2.34
o Definitions: Analyzing a website also requires you to look at several
metrics. In the chart above I have found the three-month averages for
monthly visits, unique visitors and visits per unique visitor. These
numbers are the 3-month averages for June, July and August of 2020. A
visit is when someone goes to your site. The numbers above show that
there are 2.806 million visits to SBD on average per month and 5.795
million visits to Sneaker News. A unique visitor is comparable to a device.
For example, if two people visit SBD from the same computer, and one
person visits SBD from their mobile device, there would be two unique
visitors, because although three people had visited the site, there were only
two devices being used. As seen above, SBD has on average 1.384 million
unique visitors per month and Sneaker News has 2.476 million
(“Competitive Intelligence Tool”). Visits per unique visitor is the average

7. of how many times a unique visitor visits the site. People who visit SBD
on average visit 2.03 times per month. Sneaker News visitors visit on
average 2.34 times per month.
o Comparison: As seen in the chart above, Sneaker News has more traffic
to its site on average per month than SBD by about 3 million visits.
Looking at the three-month trends for both sites, we can see a steady line
for SBD as they had a 16.71% increase in the number of monthly visits
from June to July and a 7.22% increase from June to August. Sneaker
News has a more increasing climb in the number of monthly visits as they
had a 26.22% increase from June to July and a 29.62% increase from June
to August (“Competitive Intelligence Tool”). From research conducted on
the content and authority, these numbers reflect that SBD has less traffic
due to being less-known and not published as often by other news sources.
o Returning Visitors: Although SBD and Sneaker News have a large
difference in monthly visits and unique visitors, they have very similar
averages for the number of visits per unique visitors. This means that the
traffic they do have to the site is likely made up of some return visitors.
The number of visits per unique visitor being 2.03 for SBD and 2.34 for
Sneaker News means that on average, both site’s visitors come back
around two times per month. Returning visitors are important to the
success of the website because they bring continuous traffic. Basically,
this means if they return to our site, they are happy with the content and
can successfully find what they are looking for. If the number of visits per

8. unique visitors were higher, this would mean we have more returning
customers who visit several times per month. Getting this number higher
is a good thing to strive for as a company.
• Engagement Analysis
SneakerBarDetroit.com SneakerNews.com Web Averages
Bounce Rate % 73.75% 61.71% 40-60%
Pages Per Visit 1.7 2.86 4.6
Visit Duration 00:10:25 00:05:03 00:03:10
o Bounce Rate: A bounce rate is the rate of visitors who only visit one page
of your site before exiting, including the home page. The bounce rate has
nothing to do with the amount of time a visitor spends on your site, only
how many pages they visit. This means that if a visitor is on your site for
30 minutes, but is only on one page, when they exit it is considered a
bounce. This also means if someone is only on your site for two minutes,
but visits two or more pages on your site, this is not considered a bounce.
This is important to analyze because we want people coming to our site
and staying to look around, especially for SBD. Traffic to the site is good,
but we want them to look around and read about more than one pair of
shoes, if possible. Comparing SBD’s 73.75% bounce rate to Sneaker
News’ 61.71% bounce rate, we can see that SBD has a higher bounce rate
than Sneaker News and the web average for content websites of 40-60%
(“Competitive Intelligence Tool”). This is where Google Analytics would
be beneficial to see which pages readers are bouncing from. Some content
that may contribute to bounces would be too many advertisements, slow

9. loading content, and more specifically there is a “shop now” button on the
home page which leads to eBay.com. This button,
shown at left, may contribute to quick bounces off
the site because if readers want to shop for shoes,
they will immediately click on this link (“Sneaker Bar Detroit (SBD):
Sneaker News / Release Info.”).
o Pages Per Visit: Pages per visit is the number of pages on your site a
visitor will look at during one visit. As seen above, SBD has an average of
1.7 pages per visit and Sneaker News has 2.86 (“Competitive Intelligence
Tool”). The average number of pages per visit for websites is 4.6 which
means both SBD and Sneaker News have less than average number of
pages per visit.
Looking at the metrics for SBD, because of their high bounce rate and
their average number of pages per visit being nearly 1, this makes me
believe that many visitors are only viewing one page before exiting the
site. For SBD, this can be a good thing if the one site they are visiting and
leaving is the shoe they want. If the one page they are visiting is the home
page, these would not be good numbers to have. For example, if I was a
visitor on SBD and was in search of the newest Nike release, it would be
fine if the one page I visited was the exact release article for that shoe.
This is because I most likely would then click off the site by using the
StockX link provided on SBD. This is good for SBD because they receive
money from their partnership with StockX links. Without having full

10. access to Google Analytics, it is hard to tell exactly which pages visitors
are viewing and which ones make them leave the site.
o Average Visit Duration: Another metric we looked at is the average visit
duration. This is the amount of time, on average, that a visitor spends on
our website. The amount of time spent browsing the site is important to
look at because this can tell us if they are leaving quickly or sticking
around. In the chart we can see that SBD has an average visit duration of
10 minutes and 25 seconds while Sneaker News has an average of 5
minutes and 3 seconds (“Competitive Intelligence Tool”). This is
compared to the web average visit duration of 3 minutes and 10 seconds.
Comparing these numbers, we can see that SBD has the longest average
visit duration. When considering if this is a good or bad thing, I want to
look at the content SBD offers. For example, as a site, Google would want
a lower average visit duration because they want their visitors to search for
what they need and find it as quickly as possible. In our case, SBD would
want a little bit longer of a visit duration because we want our visitors to
read and look at our content. I think SBD has a good average visit duration
because this means people are reading the articles and looking at the
photos of the shoes. Sneaker News has about half the average visit
duration SBD has, and I think this may be because on Sneaker News’
releases they have a large photo of the shoe, a short article written and
where to buy the shoes but the gallery of photos are after what seems to be
the end of the page. When looking through Sneaker News’ website it took

11. me a second to realize there were more photos if I kept scrolling. This is a
possible reason Sneaker News has a lower visit duration average than
SBD, because people spend more time on SBD looking through each
photo.
• Value Content & Engagement Improvement Recommendation
One piece of content that I think would help with SBD’s engagement metrics is to have the
option to set reminders for the release of sneakers. For example, if I want to purchase the newest
sneaker, I could simply press the “set reminder” button and it would put a reminder in my
Outlook calendar to remind me of the release date. This option would be placed on every article
about a new release on SBD
and would be under the title.
This would make it easy to
find and allow readers to be
reminded of a shoe they
want to purchase. The
example provided at left is
an example of a movie
release option to set a reminder from moviereminder.website. In this example, you can choose to
set a reminder for the movie release date, the DVD release date or the digital release date, shown
by the arrow above. For SBD, this would instead have a button to click for “Set Reminder” and
once clicked, it would take you to a page where you would put in your email address to sync

12. with your Outlook calendar.
Any reminders you then
click will show up in your
calendar and be readily
available with a link to the
website. This would not only help with the number of people coming back to the site, but this
would also bring more people to the site because no other sneaker blog has this option, that I am
aware of.
Popularity Analysis
Total Backlinks
No. of Referring
Domains
Average No. of
Backlinks per
Domain
SneakerBarDetroit.com 6,357,022 6,419 990
SneakerNews.com 5,206,840 15,935 326
• Definitions: In the chart above we are comparing the number of backlinks and
referring domains for SBD and Sneaker News. A backlink is a link to our site
from another site. This is important to look at when analyzing SBD because we
want to see how many sites are referring to ours. A referring domain is the site
that is linking to us. By dividing the total number of backlinks by the number of
referring domains, we can see what the average number of backlinks per domain.
This will give us a better idea of how many times each website links to us. This is
an important metric to look at because if the number of backlinks per domain is
too high, it could raise a red flag that there may be fake sites in the mix.
• Analysis of Link Quantity: When looking at the number of backlinks and
referring domains, quantity is not always better than quality. As discussed in
SET REMINDER

13. class, having a well-known, reputable source link to your website is better than
having one thousand non-trusted sources linking to your site. As stated in the
chart above, SBD has over 6 million backlinks and over 6,000 referring domains.
This causes a large number of backlinks per domain, 990. This means that each
website that refers to SBD links to the site an average of 990 times. On the other
hand, Sneaker News has over 5 million backlinks with almost 16,000 referring
domains (“Backlink Checker.”). With less backlinks than SBD but more referring
domains, they have a lesser number of backlinks per domain, 326. This means
that each site referring to Sneaker News links to the site an average of 326 times.
Due to the higher number of backlinks per domain that SBD has, this leads me to
believe there are more fake sites that link to SBD than Sneaker News.
• Analysis of Link Quality: SBD and Sneaker News have similar domain ratings,
as SBD is 72 and Sneaker News is 76. The domain rating is basically a rating on
how well a site’s backlink profile is. The top 10 referring domains for SBD start
out with three great domain ratings in the 90’s, then go down as low as 7
(“Backlink Checker.”). As for Sneaker News, their top 10 referring domains range
from having a domain rating of 0 to 95. SBD’s top 10 referring domains have
significantly lower URL ratings than Sneaker News. A URL rating is the rating on
a 100-point scale of how well a site’s link profile is. SBD’s highest URL rating
for a referring domain in the top 10 is 51, while Sneaker News’ referring domains
are rated up to 81. This is another metric that tells me Sneaker News may have
more quality sources than SBD due to Sneaker News’ URL ratings of referring
domains being higher. Another way to analyze the quality of the sources linking

14. to your site is to look for any restricted domains. A restricted domain is a site that
can only be secured by approved entities. This includes sites that end in .gov,
.edu, and .mil for the government, educational institutions and the military. SBD
has 2,596 backlinks from 13 educational restricted domains and 1,348 backlinks
from 3 government restricted domains. Sneaker News has 2,174 backlinks from
22 educational restricted domains and 403 backlinks from 3 government restricted
domains. This means that SBD has 199 backlinks per domain for .edu sites and
Sneaker News has 98. For .gov sites, SBD has 449 backlinks per domain and
Sneaker News has 134 (“Insight for Sneakerbardetroit.com.”). With these sources
being restricted domains, it is less likely that the higher number of backlinks per
domain is due to link manipulation or fake sites, but not completely ruled out.

15. Works Cited
“About SBD.” Sneaker Bar Detroit, sneakerbardetroit.com/about/.
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Detroit, Aug. 12, 2014, https://sneakerbardetroit.com/event-recap-michigan-sneaker-
xchange-msxc-2014/
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june-2020
Dunne, Brendan, et. al. "The Best Sneakers of 2020 (So Far)." Complex, July 7,
2020, https://www.complex.com/sneakers/best-sneakers-2020-so-far/
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16. “How StockX Works: Bid, Ask, Buy, Sell.” StockX, stockx.com/how-it-works.
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majestic.com/reports/site-explorer?q=sneakerbardetroit.com.
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2020, https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/covid-19-response-sneakers-hit-191738680.html
Powell, Matt. "Sneakernomics: First Half 2020 Athletic Footwear and Activewear Sales
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Group, https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/blog/2020/sneakernomics-first-half-
2020-athletic-footwear-and-activewear-sales-results/#.XyRaw2NrB1k.twitter
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sneakerbardetroit.com/.
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2020, blog.feedspot.com/sneaker_blogs/.
Urgo. Compare Sbdetroit and Sneakernews Twitter Statistics ( By Social Blade),
socialblade.com/twitter/compare/sbdetroit/sneakernews.