RationalWiki.org is a politically left-leaning website that skews towards atheism/agnosticism in terms of its worldview.
The RationalWiki website lost a huge amount of web traffic in the latter part of 2019 and throughout most the first half of 2020 (see graphics below). According to the web traffic tracking company Alexa, the website lost global market in the latter part of 2021 (see: RationalWiki and Alexa rankings).
2022 state of RationalWiki.org in terms of web traffic and web marketing metrics
SimilarWeb data for RationalWiki as of January 9, 2022: On January 9, 2022, SimilarWeb indicated that RataionalWiki.org was losing its ranking relative to other websites when it comes to web traffic.
Web marketing is often a relative strength game. Just because a website is gaining content or links does not mean that its competitors are not moving faster.
RationalWiki.org 2021/2022: Referring domains and other backlink data

A website that has the interest and trust of the public has a steady inbound link growth from other websites.
According to LinkResearchTool.com: "Link Velocity describes the speed of link growth to a page or domain. Link Velocity can be measured in new links per month or new linking root domains per month."[1]
In addition, according to Link Research Tools: "A very negative link velocity trend (LVT) means that the web has lost interest in the page or domain."[2]
On July 17, 2021, according to Link Research Tools, RationalWiki.org had a -35% negative link velocity trend which is a very steep loss of domains linking to the website.
Link Research Tools is the Cadilac of link research tools in terms of showing websites: number of backlinks, number of referring backlink domains, quality of links linking to a website, competitor link data, link building opportunities, toxic backlinks, etc. It is also one of the most expensive backlink tools to use. It is more expensive than some of its competitors such as Ahrefs.com and SEMRush.com.

However, according to SemRush in November of 2021, RationalWiki started to reverse that trend and as of January 9, 2022 and it is now seeing a very small increase in referring domains (+2%).
RationalWiki.org: May 2020 to May 2022 loss of Google traffic and the loss of the strength of backlink strength relative to other websites from 2-15-2022 to 5-15-2022
Similarweb.com: In terms of web traffic, RationalWiki's global and United States website ranking was dropping in July of 2021
Google searches for the term "RationalWiki" from 2007 to February 6, 2022 in the world and in the United States
See also: Google trends - Atheism and agnosticism terms
Google searches for the term "RationalWiki" from 2007 to February 6, 2022 in the world
Google searches for the term "RationalWiki" from 2007 to February 6, 2022 in the United States
As you can see in the above graph, as far as the United States, the number of searches for the term RationWiki at Google is much lower than its peak in May of 2015.
RationalWiki: Google searches for the term RationalWiki from 5-15-2017 to 5-15-2022. Beginning in the latter part of 2020, there were far fewer people in the world doing Google searches for the term "RationalWiki"
RationalWiki now gets far less Google referral traffic than in the past
See also: Internet atheism
As you can see in the above graph, Google has downgraded its estimation of RationalWiki in terms of the quality of its website and RationalWiki is getting less Google traffic (Please click the graphic above to enlarge it).
Key point: If you click on the graphic below, you will see that RationalWiki was receiving 300,000+ monthly referral visits from Google desktop computer users in April 2021. So RationalWiki lost a large amount of its Google referral traffic in 2021. Specifically, RationalWiki lost 115,000 Google monthly referral visits from Google desktop computer users from April 2021 to December 2021.
1,300+ websites delinked from RationalWiki.org from May of 2021 to July 15, 2021
Semrush offers solutions for SEO, PPC, content, social media and competitive research. Semrush is trusted by over 7,000,000 marketers worldwide.
In May of 2021, there were 22,394 domains linking to RationalWiki.org according to Semrush.
On July 15, 2021, there were 21,090 domains linking to RationalWiki.org according to Semrush.
From May of 2021 to July 15, 2021, RationalWiki lost 1,304 domains linking to it.
That's about a loss of 1,300+ websites linking to RationalWiki.org in a few months.
Two of the leading website marketing analytics websites indicate that the link velocity rate of RationalWiki is negative, not positive (SEMRush and Link Research Tools).
According to Link Research Tools: "A very negative link velocity trend (LVT) means that the web has lost interest in the page or domain."[3]
SimilarWeb.com indicates RationalWiki lost traffic in 2021 and that it is currently losing web traffic.[4]

In May of 2021, there were 22,394 domains linking to RationalWiki.org according to Semrush.
On July 15, 2021, there were 21,090 domains linking to RationalWiki.org according to Semrush.
From May of 2021 to June 15, 2021, RationalWiki lost 1,304 domains linking to it.
RationalWiki.org has a negative link velocity. When a website loses interest with the online public, it often has a negative link velocity. A negative link velocity means that the number
According to LinkResearchTool.com: "Link Velocity describes the speed of link growth to a page or domain. Link Velocity can be measured in new links per month or new linking root domains per month."[5]
In addition, according to Link Research Tools: "A very negative link velocity trend (LVT) means that the web has lost interest in the page or domain."[6]
On July 17, 2021, according to Link Research Tools, RationalWiki.org had a -35% negative link velocity trend which is a very steep loss of domains linking to the website.
In December of 2021, RationalWiki was experiencing a high negative link velocity
Nearly two-thirds of RationalWiki's web audience is male according to SimilarWeb.com
See also: Atheism and women
RationalWiki and web visitor interest in pornography and the trolling of RationalWiki editors
See also: RationalWiki and web visitor interest in pornography and RationalWiki and internet trolls

The editors of the website RationalWiki try to portray the website as a thinking person's wiki where the editors carefully analyze various matters.
But SimilarWeb.com data shows a significant portion of RationalWiki's web audience is interested in "adult" material as can be seen by the "adult" audience interests in the above graphic.
Many feminists contend that pornography exploits women.[7] RationalWiki is a pro-feminism website.[8]
The 5th most similar website audience in terms of RationalWiki.org is Kiwifarms.net.[9] Kiwi Farms is an American Internet forum dedicated to the discussion of online figures and communities it deems "lolcows". According to the website, Knowyourmeme.com, "Lolcow, a portmanteau of the acronym LOL and cow, is a derogatory slang term used to describe an individual who is deemed highly exploitable, and therefore susceptible to online trolling and flaming, due to his or her display of gullible behavior online."[10]
The editors of the website RationalWiki try to portray the website as a thinking person's wiki where the editors carefully analyze various matters.
But SimilarWeb.com data shows a significant portion of RationalWiki's web audience is interested in "adult" material as can be seen by the "adult" audience interests in the above graphic.
Many feminists contend that pornography exploits women.[11] RationalWiki is a pro-feminism website.[12]
Atheism and pornography. Atheism and child pornography.
RationalWiki, internet trolls, the Kiwi Farms website and individuals going to RationalWiki to troll politically left-leaning atheists
See also: RationalWiki and internet trolls and Mocking of atheism and Atheist trolls and Atheism and humor and Atheism and arrogance
According to an article published in the Los Angeles Times in 2007, RationalWiki members "by their own admission" vandalize Conservapedia.[13] At the same time, RationalWiki.org is currently experiencing a significant amount of trolling and vandalism.
As can be seen in the graphic above from SimilarWeb.com, the 5th most similar website audience in terms of RationalWiki.org is Kiwifarms.net.[14]
According to Wikipedia, which is a website founded by an atheist and agnostic, "Kiwi Farms, formerly known as CWCki Forums, is an American Internet forum dedicated to the discussion of online figures and communities it deems "lolcows". The targets of threads are often subject to doxing and other forms of organized group trolling, harassment, and stalking, including real-life harassment by users."[15] According to the website, Knowyourmeme.com, "Lolcow, a portmanteau of the acronym LOL and cow, is a derogatory slang term used to describe an individual who is deemed highly exploitable, and therefore susceptible to online trolling and flaming, due to his or her display of gullible behavior online."[16]

See also: Atheism and foolishness and Mocking of atheism
At the Kiwi Farms website, there is currently 136 pages of discussion pages at the Kiwi Farms website dealing with RationalWiki and much of it is of a disparaging nature.[17] A discussion thread about RationalWiki at the Kiwi Farms website describes RationalWiki as a "Whiny hugbox for spergs and a cluster**** of neverending drama on a rapidly declining website."[18] Atheists have a reputation for having poor social skills (see: Atheism and social/interpersonal intelligence). In recent years, as noted above, the website RationalWiki has seen an enormous loss of web traffic. Apparently, the web visitors of Kiwi Farms consider RationalWikians to be gullible "lolcows" who are easily upset (see also: Atheism and gullibility).
The website Kiwi Farms has antipathy towards social justice warriors. RationalWiki.org is largely a pro-SJW atheists website.
Websites that are under troll and vandal attacks often take a bunker mentality and become preoccupied with fighting trolls and vandals. This bunker mentality is especially prevalent for websites that wish to defend a narrow-minded political/ideological narrative that poorly reflects reality such as RationalWiki. As a result, they often become unwelcoming websites to a large portion of the public.
Furthermore, because the individuals involved in the website are bogged down fighting trolls and vandals instead of creating new content, often this is a contributing factor to the websites losing global marketshare, Google rankings and web traffic in general.
As can be seen above, the website RationalWiki is currently losing global market share.
Both atheists and Muslims have developed a reputation of being thin-skinned (and for wanting to impose their ideology on others). It has been quipped that "Atheism is the easiest religion to troll".[19][20] Internet trolls often actively pursue trolling atheists due to their penchant of being so proud and so easily angered.[21]
In 2012, The Guardian published an article entitled Limmy's Show: Confessions of an internet troll which had the subtitle There's a witch-hunt going on against internet trolls right now. But, argues Scots funnyman Limmy, randomly goading atheists, jocks and non-existent techno geeks can be fun.[21] And of course, being thin-skinned is symptomatic of having excessive pride.
Breitbart journalist Milo Yiannopoulos, a self-described provocateur, indicates "the reason I have a go at atheists is that it's fun. They are so thin-skinned. They are like libertarians, or...they are like liberal Democrats in the UK or..feminists in fact. They are so easy to wind up... They are so touchy."[22]
Atheists have reputation for being arrogant (see: Atheism and arrogance). Most people and cultures take a very dim view of proud people and some cultures are known for actively engaging humbling successful people and/or proud people (Several Anglosphere nations are known for having tall poppy syndrome and Filipinos are known for having a "crab culture". Crabs in a bucket of water will pull down crabs trying to escape from the bucket).
As can be seen by the below screenshots, RationalWiki is currently attracting a lot of trolls and vandals.
RationalWiki and concern trolling

The Christian philosopher James S. Spiegel says the path from Christianity to atheism among several of his friends involved moral slippage such as resentment or unforgiveness.[23]
See: Atheism and anger and Atheism and unforgiveness
See also: Atheism and intolerance and Atheism and anger and Atheism and dogmatism and Atheism and profanity
According to Dictionary.com a concerning troll is: "Concern trolling involves someone opposing an idea or viewpoint, yet acting like they’re an advocate for the cause. A concern troll offers undermining criticisms under the guise of concern. Their goal is to sabotage the cause being discussed, and to inspire doubt among group members. This occurs in groups rallied around a particular issue, especially in political parties, and the goal of concern trolling is to cause dissent within a community."[24]
Given the many problems of atheist worldview (see: Rebuttals to atheist arguments), the decline of the secular left, atheist hypocrisy, global desecularization and the many problems Democrats and American leftists are experiencing under the Biden Administration, RationalWikians especially dislike concern trolling. It raises questions that cause cognitive dissonance within RationalWikians and it also undermines group cohesiveness (see also: Atheism and groupthink). It also makes the secular leftists depressed and many secular leftists are prone to depression and depression regarding political events unfavorable to secular leftism (see: Atheism and depression and Secular leftists and psychogenic illness). The website Marketwatch reported concerning the aftermath of the 2016 presidential race: Donald Trump’s win is causing a surge in demand for mental health services.[25]
RationalWiki's Saloon Bar (a general discussion area at RationalWiki ) and article/user talk pages are especially prone to concerning trolling. RationalWikians have become very angry and have displayed such behavior as using profanity and angrily typing in all cap letters when their ideas are questioned by others and/or concern trolls (see: Atheism and intolerance and Atheism and anger and Atheism and dogmatism and Atheism and profanity).[26]
Concerning atheism and dogmatism, research shows that atheists are less open-minded (see: Atheism and open-mindedness).
In the BBC documentary The Trouble with Atheism the award-winning journalist Rod Liddle indicates:
“ | Some atheists have become rather dogmatic. Terribly certain in their conviction that there is no God and anyone who thinks there is is a deluded and dangerous fool. ...atheists are becoming as intransigent about their own views as the people they so despise.
Atheism is becoming a religion of its own. It already has its gurus and its revered sacred texts... It has its magnificent temples within which lie mysteries and unknowable truths.[27] |
” |
RationalWiki has created an entire article devoted to concern trolling.[28]
RationalWiki, its Discord discussion servers and its fear of transparency/trolls
RationalWiki has two Discord discussion servers which are given below:
- RationalWiki Support Chat — Support server, it's focused on wiki-related issues and moderation issues
RationalWiki.org puts requirements on its Discord servers in terms of joining in terms of a certain amount of edits to RationalWiki.org due to its fear of trolls and transparency.
RationalWiki and its Alexa rankings
See also: RationalWiki and Alexa rankings
According to Alexa, on November 26, 2021, the average website visitor to the RationalWiki website was spending 3 minutes and 10 seconds on the RationalWiki website. But as can be seen above, on January 28, 2022, website visitors to the RationalWiki website were merely spending on average 2 minutes and 32 seconds on the website.

According to Alexa, on November 26, 2021, the average website visitor to the RationalWiki website was spending 3 minutes and 10 seconds on the RationalWiki website. But as can be seen above, on January 16, 2022, website visitors to the RationalWiki website were merely spending on average 2 minutes and 37 seconds on the website.

According to Alexa, on November 26, 2021, the average website visitor to the RationalWiki website was spending 3 minutes and 10 seconds on the RationalWiki website. But as can be seen above, on January 16, 2022, website visitors to the RationalWiki website were merely spending on average 2 minutes and 37 seconds on the website.
On October 23, 2021, RationalWiki fell below the top 100,000 most popular websites on the worldwide web according to the web traffic tracking company Alexa
On October 23, 2021, RationalWiki fell below the top 100,000 most popular websites on the worldwide web according to the web traffic tracking company Alexa. Specifically, on October 23, 2021, RationalWiki was ranked the 100,814th most popular website in the world.
On October 23, 2021, RationalWiki's website indicates: "Also since 2013, RW's Alexa rank (a measure accurate only in a broad sense) has hovered between 15,000th and 25,000th most popular website on the entire Internet...".[29] One again, atheists engage in deceit! See: Atheism and deception
However, on October 23, 2021, RationalWiki did correctly point out that RationalWiki was more popular than skeptic websites such as Freethought Blogs and Skeptoid which currently rank the 111,152th and 468,630th most popular websites in the world by Alexa.[30]
See also
References
- ↑ Link Velocity Trends (LVT)
- ↑ What are typical uses of Link Velocity Trends?, Link Research Tools website
- ↑ What are typical uses of Link Velocity Trends?, Link Research Tools website
- ↑ SimilarWeb.com - RationalWiki
- ↑ Link Velocity Trends (LVT)
- ↑ What are typical uses of Link Velocity Trends?, Link Research Tools website
- ↑ Feminist Perspectives on Sex Markets, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, October 6, 2020
- ↑ RationalWiki - Feminism
- ↑ SimilarWeb.com - RationalWiki
- ↑ Lolcow - Knowyourmeme
- ↑ Feminist Perspectives on Sex Markets, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, October 6, 2020
- ↑ RationalWiki - Feminism
- ↑ Simon, Stephanie (June 19, 2007). "A conservative's answer to Wikipedia". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on May 5, 2019.
- ↑ SimilarWeb.com - RationalWiki
- ↑ Wikipedia - Kiwi Farms
- ↑ Lolcow - Knowyourmeme
- ↑ Kiwi Farms - RationalWiki discussion pages
- ↑ Kiwi Farms - RationalWiki discussion pages
- ↑ "Martin Wefail" on Twitter
- ↑ Atheism is the easiest religion to troll
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 Limmy's Show: Confessions of an internet troll, The Guardian, Brian Limond The Guardian, Friday 9 November 2012 10.00 EST
- ↑ Milo Yiannopoulos vs Atheism
- ↑ Christian Philosopher Explores Causes of Atheism
- ↑ Concern troll
- ↑ Trump’s win is causing a surge in demand for mental health services, Marketwatch 2016
- ↑ RationalWiki Saloon Bar archives
- ↑ BBC Documentary The Trouble With Atheism BBC Horizon Documentary
- ↑ RationalWiki - Concern Troll
- ↑ RationalWiki article at RationalWki
- ↑ RationalWiki article at RationalWki