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NYT visits down as much as 15% a day since paywall debut

avatar by Published Apr. 12, 2011 7:40 am

Hitwise.com
Hitwise compared the total visits to NYTimes.com for a 12 day period before the launch of the pay wall to the 12 days following the launch. For most days, there was a decrease in the overall visits between 5% and 15%. “The one exception was Saturday, April 9th, 2011 where there was a 7% increase, likely due to visitors seeking news around the potential government shutdown and ongoing budget discussions,” writes Heather Dougherty.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/jolly.nytimes Tom Jolly

    While it’s not surprising that traffic would go down when the NYT’s metered model was put in place, this report would have more context if it compared traffic at “control group” sites, like the Washington Post or the Huffington Post, during the same period. After all, traffic ebbs and flows according to the news and it would add to our understanding if we knew whether other sites maintained steady traffic over this time.

  • http://www.facebook.com/jolly.nytimes Tom Jolly

    While it’s not surprising that traffic would go down when the NYT’s metered model was put in place, this report would have more context if it compared traffic at “control group” sites, like the Washington Post or the Huffington Post, during the same period. After all, traffic ebbs and flows according to the news and it would add to our understanding if we knew whether other sites maintained steady traffic over this time.

  • http://www.facebook.com/kevin.cesarz Kevin Cesarz

    Isn’t it the case that visitors are given access until they have viewed a certain number of pages then the paywall kicks in? Shouldn’t we be looking at the analytics in about a month from now?