I enjoyed reading Mickey Alam Khan’s article (“Online Newspaper Readership Soars 11%,” Nov. 21) and only wish that you had pointed out for your readers that a major sporting event clearly played into the traffic trends.
Specifically, for Boston.com, October ’05 was slightly down year over year due to the incredible traffic the site enjoyed with the ’04 Red Sox World Series victory. During that Series, Boston.com saw a 70 percent year-over-year growth, so it seems odd that you would use that as a performance reference point for how Boston.com is growing.
Also, as an FYI, Boston.com in April launched site registration, and since then we have still seen positive year-over-year growth every single month (3 percent to 14 percent), which is more than most site-registration Web publishers can say during the first six months post-launch.
As for the Houston Chronicle’s site, it would seem that the Astros’ rise through the playoffs and into the World Series played a role in the Chronicle’s traffic boost for October 2005.
Would you consider updating your story in order to give your readers such a critical piece of information about the traffic trends you report?
