min day Digital Summit
November 9 in NYC
Register Today!

BREAKING NEWS & VIEWS

Times UK: When Your Traffic Hits the Paywall
Tuesday, June 29, 2010

What happens to Web site traffic when publishers impose a pay model or even a registration barrier around their online content? No surprise—traffic dives.

But according to fascinating analytics from Hitwise UK, the effect of pay models on overall reach may not be catastrophic. News Corp.’s flagship U.K. newspaper The Times began easing its way into an eventual paid access system last Tuesday by requiring registration. According to the analytics company Hitwise, traffic to the Times Web site dropped from a 4.37% share of the news and media market during a similar week in May to 2.67% last week.

The weeklong metric is not reflective of the full effect of registration on traffic, however, because the Times only brought down the wall later in the week. On a daily basis for the days in which the model was in force, traffic plummeted to a 1.81% share of the market. Also dropping was time spent, which went from five and half minutes per session to three minutes. The overall time-spent figure may have been adversely affected by the number of people deciding to leave the site when they saw that registration was required.




While the traffic suppression as a result of a registration wall seems substantial, Hitwise analyst Robin Goad says that the drop is not as precipitous as many expected. In fact, the most-visited part of the Times universe of sites lately has been the new site dedicated to registration. Arguably, what may be lost in superficial search-driven traffic is gained by the richer data now available from a smaller pool of people who are coming for the Times brand. The real test will come, of course, when the full paid content system finally does descend on the Times. But for now, the run-up to a paywall system has not gutted the great newspaper’s brand power online.


Search Jobs
Media Jobs
min Social Networks

Join us on Linkedin
Follow us on Linkedin
Please enter the following information to have a link to The Skinny emailed to your iPhone:

White Papers
Get even smarter -- download a white paper today.

Featured White Papers:
Internet measurement of ad-noting: Sampling and Statistical Issues
By MRI


Successfully Building Communities for Your Business
By Ripple6



... more Whitepapers
min Contests

min contests




To sponsor a min contest, contact Amy Abbey at aabbey@accessintel.com.

 Reserve your contest in min

min Press

min Presents: The Most Intriguing & Top-Selling Magazine Covers 2007-2010Intriguing & Top-Selling Magazine Covers

 View Details
                           

State of Digital MediaThe State of Digital Media

 View Details
                           

Twitter Best Practices for Media CompaniesTwitter Best Practices for Media Companies

 View Details
                           

                                    Internet Sales            Guidebook

 View Details

All min Press

Inside min This Week
Events Calendar

September 15
Awards Event: September 15
More Information

November 9, 2010
min day Digital Summit
Learn More

All Events


min
Free Eletters — Sign up Now