vr,
I hope KN doesn't mind me stepping up to the plate here but a few things I noticed that I wanted to mention...
First of all I can't fathom someone thinking there is something fishy about
Forbes magazine. Secondly, the reason I know this next one is I have follwed Scuba Source for a long time and still have old bookmarks like this:
Your example of newdiver.com with scubadiving.com vs scubasource.com with 160+ other domains they have is way off... and not even a close comparrison... For those that have follwed the SSN you may remember the older URL's for sections... For example try this:
http://www.scubasource.com/scubaboard.com/ and the regular
http://www.scubaboard.com... (except they changed the scubasource.com part to extremefactor.com) and all of the domains can be shown like that. Only a few months ago that's how most of the sites were gotten to. The idea is to have each "section" have its own name so people can easily remember their favorite section and make navigation easier to remember. (hehe, I asked about that one)
They aren't ALL "different sites". They are just different sections of the same site. There are some exceptions but that is the general rule at play here. Instead of a "travel section" or a "Equipment section" or a "Msg Board", they each have their own domain ... Pretty darn smart if you ask me! I've noticed many of the big sites are just now starting to do this and ScubaSource has been doing it for years.
I wont mention the exact numbers because I don't think KN wants them mentioned but I know this next tidbit of info because I have a good friend that works for their backbone provider, but let's say that if you want to
count traffic Scuba Source simply
SMOKES those other scuba site (that like to jump up and down and pound on their chest) by a mile. Some of the other sites out there like to jump up and down and brag and boast about their stats when I know for a fact that they aren't even close to the SSN's.
Bottom line: Things aren't always as they seem. (and if you look you will see how Forbes rates those, that Netscape site only counts traffic sent there FROM netscape!)