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The Digital Edge Blog focuses on developments, trends, best practices and more in newspaper digital media. The blog launched in 2006 (archives before August 2008 are here).
We look forward to reading your comments and contributions to the Digital Edge Blog. Questions? E-mail Beth Lawton at beth.lawton@naa.org.
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Nielsen: Drudge Leads in Sessions Per User; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Top Newspaper on List
Politics and financial news drove page views at news and current events Web sites in
October, according to data from Nielsen Online. On Nielsen Online's list of Top 30 News and Current Events Destinations (ranked by sessions per user), Daily Kos sat in 3rd place with 9.9 sessions per user, and Real Clear Politics moved from
12th place in September to 8th place with 6.9 sessions per
user. Politico.com moved to 15th place in October (up from 16th
in September and 23rd in August) with 5.3 sessions per user. Huffington
Post, which has not been on the top 30 list, came on at 22nd place
with 4.3 sessions per user.
The Drudge Report led the list again with 23.5 sessions per user. Although sessions per user matters because it shows how often users come back
to a site in a given month, unique visitors is also (obviously) indicative of growth.
Most Web sites in the top 30 list this month saw unique visitor growth.
Thirteen newspaper (or newspaper group) Web sites made the top 30 list this
month. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel had the top newspaper position in
September, but the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reigned in October with 6.3 sessions
per user (this is up from 4.6 sessions per user in September). The Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel's sessions per user dropped just 0.3 sessions per user to 5.4
Washingtonpost.com joined this list this month at 30th place (3.6
sessions per user), just below the Star Tribune at 29th place (3.9
sessions per user). The Desert Morning News is back on the list (caveat: their
internal numbers have differed from Nielsen's in the past).
Nielsen Online provides these numbers to the Newspaper Association of America
on a monthly basis, showing traffic and sessions per person* to the top 30
sites in the "News" category based on July 2008 numbers. It takes
into account U.S.
home and work Internet usage, and it shows both unique visitors to each brand
or channel and sessions per person.
*Note on the numbers: Auto-refresh features on Web sites (i.e. when a
Web site page reloads automatically) does not increase the number of
sessions.
See this Excel file for all of this month's statistics
from Nielsen Online. See the blog entry on the September top 30 list here.
Published
Nov 16 2008, 04:16 PM
by
Beth Lawton
About Beth Lawton
Beth Lawton is manager, digital media communications in the Business Development division of the Newspaper Association of America. She writes and edits many of NAA’s Digital Edge reports and the Online Publishing Update.
Prior to joining NAA two years ago, she worked as a Web producer and editor in newsrooms in the Midwest and the Caribbean.
Beth is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis and Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism (MSJ New Media 2003).
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