Pageviews: 2-2.1 million estimated
We had an issue with code we tried to place to track authors in Google Analytics. It worked for about the first hour (basically when I checked it) then we lost data for half a day, then two days in full following that (and possibly slightly into the next day). Google Analytics reports 1,899,286 for the month. We estimate conservatively at around 50-75,000 page views in total for each missing day. See the circled days in the chart. It may have been higher given the days either side were just over 100,000 each.
Either way, this is down on last months high, but we tend to go in cycles with traffic: every high tends to be followed by a month which is less. Notably though this (presuming the 2-2.1m) is our second highest month on record.
Traffic profile: highest post did 6.99% vs 15.2% for last month. The smaller the figure, the more distributed our traffic is.
Finances: the worm may have turned.
For the first month since October 2008 we saw an increase in our advertising on a CPM basis (every other month has seen a decrease in net CPM, even when we’ve earned more in total due to increased traffic). This was primarily led by our front line provider who landed some decent campaigns this month. I’m not about to start sending out bottles of Moet & Chandon as bonuses to writers (it’s a lot more expensive in Australia than the US), but hopefully things are on the up. The test will be if the upturn continues into April: a couple of more months like this, combined with some solid traffic growth, and we’ll be able to expand some more in terms of fixed writers and what we’re offering. I simply don’t want to jinx myself by getting excited, but it’s a pleasant change.
Technorati Rank: 178
Our first solid time in the top 200 (we were there for one day previously, and I think it might have been a blip). We’ve been there for nearly two weeks. Technorati works on a 6 mth rotation, and that means October comes off the total this month, and October last year was our first real boom month. The key as always is to drive more incoming links now than the ones you’re losing from 6 months ago.
