WSJ.com Hits & Subs Up, Skepticism Down
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Amanda McDavid

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According to a MediaWeek report last week, The Wall Street Journal's tightrope-walking free plus subscription-modeled website has grown remarkably over the past  year. In June, the site reached 16.2 million uniques, a 94 percent increase versus the same month last year based on the company’s numbers.

Despite suspicions that this rise has more to do with the increased availability of their free content than demand for their paid content, subscriptions are up as well, with a 36% increase from June 2006 to June 2008. Min talked to Gordon McLeod, president of The Wall Street Journal Digital Network, to find out why. He claims that there are four reasons for this success:

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): WSJ articles did not often come up in search results prior to the implementation of this process, since articles were paid-only content

2. Leveraging of Content: Enabled by WSJ Digital Networks consisting of Barrons and Marketwatch as well

3. More Subscribers: Subscriptions are up by 36% from June’06 to June’08

4. Stronger Web Site: Improvements in navigation, video, photography

WSJ.com is also growing in terms of hits it receives from non-subscribers, partially due to its selective release of certain articles to third party news outlets Google News, Drudge, and Digg. Though it's believed that they are “cheating the system”, the WSJ.com does this intentionally in order to increase hits on its website. The WSJ.com controls how the system is working, and intends on keeping it the way it is. The proportion of free content to paid content is still the same, according to McLeod, and the site is doing just fine going against the trend.

Several factors will influence whether or not their success will continue. WSJ has been facelifting since Murdoch took over the paper and site, which could also be the reason for the traffic spike.

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