A doubling in growth seems nearly impossible. Did overall web traffic increase last year by anything like this amount? Wouldn't Corporate have been shouting about this from the rooftops by now?
Word for word, following are the key passages from the 10-K reports filed in February of each of the following years:
2009. Gannett’s total Online U.S. Internet Audience in January 2009 was 27.1 million unique visitors, reaching about 16.1% of the Internet audience, as measured by Nielsen//NetRatings.
2010. Gannett’s total Online U.S. Internet Audience in January 2010 was 27.3 million unique visitors, reaching about 13% of the Internet audience, as measured by comScore Media Metrix.
2011. Gannett is an Internet leader with hundreds of newspaper and TV web sites and several national web sites, reaching 52 million unique users monthly, or about 24% of the Internet audience, as measured by comScore Media Metrix.
Actually, at our newspaper we were able to more than double the unique visitors to our website because we linked all our website stories from our newspaper's Facebook page.
ReplyDeleteWe have a very active Facebook page and each day our story headlines are posted on Facebook. When Friends or Fans click on the headline, they go straight to our website.
This has led to a huge jump in numbers for us.
That MAY be what has happened for Gannett. Of course, this is assuming that the Gannett website folks have the smarts to do something like this. And that is a major stretch.
I believe there was a change in Comscore Media Metrix methodology which benefited GCI. So, GCI didn't have explosive growth but their web traffic was being undercounted in previous years. GCI has so many small websites that they were not being accurately represented under the old panel methodology, but with the new panel+server audit methodolgy, GCI is seeing a better representation of its true web traffic.
ReplyDeleteWas the 2010 figure from comScore the older, panel-only number? Or was it the newer, "unified" number? If it was the former -- which may be the case, since I don't recall whether all the USCP sites were switched over to the newer methodology by then -- there's your answer. Most sites -- including USAT -- saw between a 50% and 100% gain in uniques as a result of the change. But, I don't recall whether the panel-only figures ceased availability in June 2009 or June 2010.
ReplyDeleteIf it's not a case of discrepant methods, then I don't know what the source would be.
@5:31, you could always argue that, in fact, the numbers are "overcounted" now. Publishers certainly like the new numbers, but there's no stamp of approval from any industry body like the MRC that says the new figures are more accurate. But, they sure are bigger.
ReplyDeleteAnd, BTW, there's nothing "audited" about either method.
I wonder how many of those facebook people come back after seeing the site once?
ReplyDeleteAfter a bit of follow-up, it looks like the unified measurement was introduced in '09 and mandated switchover was in '10. So, unless my source is wrong, the method change probably does account for the difference.
ReplyDeleteJosh Resnik and Andy Jacobson are behind they bullshit numbers. Everyone knows we are counting the unique visitors from Careerbuilder. This should be investigated as it is totally false!
ReplyDeleteWebsite visitors don't mean much to advertisers. When's the last time you clicked on a website ad...yea, that's what I thought. Smart advertisers know there are better places to spend ad dollars.
ReplyDeleteWe recently moved to the odyssey platform and one reader pointed out that the ads didn't bother him - "I can ignore them on the web, in the paper, on the side of the bus, at the stadium and at the urinal."
ReplyDeleteI guess advertising doesn't work. Let's go home...
Btw, how do you audit unique visitors on those urinal ads?
It is impossible for the unique visitor numbers to jump that high without a very large change in counting. I find it peculiar that the numbers jumped so high shortly after Digital completed the roll out of the Comscore Hybrid reporting.
ReplyDeleteFailing to note a change in methodology, which appears to be the case here, makes apples-to-apples comparisons impossible. Moreover, failing to note such a change is sloppy at best, and potentially deceptive at worst. Those are big no-no's in regulatory filings.
ReplyDeleteManagement has never been overly concerned with accuracy. The bigger the number, the better, even if it's meaningless.
ReplyDelete@10:20, actually unique visitors *is* the metric that our advertisers talk about, and I don't think it's different anywhere else. Not sure how things are across the company, but we've seen real and substantial growth in our web traffic in the past 18 months. Social media and multimedia play a role, and so does Odyssey, frankly. But the biggest difference is the quality of content, frankly. That's why I think if you look at the recent round of job cuts, few if any of them involved digital content creators.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Compete, neither USAToday.com nor CareerBuilder has grown UV's over the past 12 months: http://siteanalytics.compete.com/usatoday.com+careerbuilder.com/
ReplyDelete