The Standard’s last two months

Written By: - Date published: 8:46 pm, October 1st, 2014 - 19 comments
Categories: admin, The Standard - Tags:

I’ve just been digging through the statistics for the last couple of months here at The Standard on Google analytics looking back over the last 7 years (a lifetime in blogging terms). We did pretty well for a crew who are all volunteers doing this in our spare time, a server budget now less than $300 per month and where all of us have a pile of other work to do.

Remember these figures are from google analytics from Jan 1 2008 (we turned it on at the end of Jan). They are different from the numbers in Open Parachute in sessions because every analysis program measures them differently.

Our users (as analytics calls unique visitors) is up just a tad compared to the usual. You can see the spikes at the end of 2008 and November 2011 for the previous elections. It was a bit of a lift this time around.

TheStandard_Users_2008-Sep2014

To give an idea how much of a difference it was. Look at the 3 months around this election and last election. The election in 2011 was on 26th of November. This years election was on the 20th of September.

2011 Users 2014 Users
Sept 25,858 July 40,078
Oct 34,667 Aug 71,327
Nov 46,621 Sept 113,482

But as importantly to me we didn’t suffer significiant drops in the quality of time that people spent at the site despite the increased number of users. Our time per session didn’t drop much from its usual average 6 minutes per session (more on that later). So people were still reading our posts and comments as avidly as usual.

TheStandard_VisitTime_2008-Sep2014

Our pages per session didn’t change markedly. Note that the pageview spikes in April/May 2011 and Aug/Sep/Oct 2012 were affected by a bug in the facebook async code that facebook eventually corrected. We’re still doing just over 3 pages per visit.

TheStandard_PagesPerSession_2008-Sep2014

Our sessions have climbed.

TheStandard_Sessions_2008-Sep2014

 

And our % New sessions (ie new readers) has climbed quite a lot as you’d expect.

TheStandard_PercentNewSessions_2008-Sep2015

What did surprise me was that more people were coming back to read more compared to last election. You read the PDF by ” target=”_blank”>clicking here, or face the scrolling fun of an embed.

Wow! some of you really do spend a lot more time here than I do.

Anyway while the election might have gotten somewhat disappointing results and we have had a cousin blog from further left growing next to us at The Daily Blog, it looks like The Standard is in fine shape. Apart from the inevitable fatigue by authors post election. Even more from me I suspect as I started a new job at the end of July and shifted the primary server on to fibre at home at the start of August.

19 comments on “The Standard’s last two months ”

  1. Skinny 1

    Well done the Standard team! I find this blog a wealth of information of what is going on within these shores. Your efforts are much appreciated thank you all very much, and same applies to the regular contributors for their opinions.

  2. dale 2

    My thanks to the team. I don’t agree with a lot of what I read here but I’m always open to persuasion and am over msm big time. Again thanks.

  3. Richard 3

    Congrats “The Standard” Well done team. It’s nice to be able to read somewhere, the other point of view, Having one and all. 🙂

  4. just saying 4

    Thanks Lyn (and others).
    Just after the election Lyn wrote that he was fed up and thinking of finishing with the Standard. Later in the day, the blog was down for ages and I thought “God, Lyn’s packed it in”, and I felt a bit bereft, to be honest. I do know what a hopeless misfit anorak that makes me.
    I don’t comment much these days, but I do like to check in and read what the regulars (bloggers and commenters) are saying. I enjoy the conversation, the discussion, the information and the many of the links and feel like I know you people, in a funny kind of way.
    Sometimes when I despair of this shitty political situation we find ourselves in, with all of the looming crises gathering on the horizon being ignored by those with the most power to change the things that urgently require attention and action, you people help keep me (what I like to think passes for) sane.
    kia kaha.

    • lprent 4.1

      I am. Desperately need time for work at present.

      There was one kind techhead ordered to help out and they checked out. However work, a cold, a sprained foot, and a foolish caucus happened and I am still looking for the email.

  5. adam 5

    Just in case any of the team, think they are not bloody impressive – slap yourselves.

    Thank you the standard team – Thank you.

  6. Reddelusion 6

    Agree standard does a good job. Hardly ever agree with any of your bloggers, likewise majority of comments, however healthy at least to challenge your own world view.

  7. Colonial Viper 7

    The Standard is an amazing, powerful piece of left wing infrastructure, one that operates independently of political parties which makes it even more amazing.

    Thank you to lprent, the donors and funders, the invaluable helpers, posters and commentators who keep The Standard running and growing!

  8. Murray Olsen 8

    Thanks. The Standard is the only place I know of that is a stage for broad Kiwi social democratic thought and debate. The Daily Bog allows sometimes allows for comments, but is hopeless for debate. Others don’t have an interacting leadership. I think this unique feature of The Standard will lead to attacks from the right, trying to discredit your good work.

    I suspect I’m someone you would almost never agree with, but thanks for giving me the opportunity to spout my ultraleft crap anyway. Cheers.

  9. tc 9

    An oasis of reason and open debate in an agenda packed landscape, thank you for the hard work.

    The intelligence of authors and bloggers alike is refreshing whilst the dumbing down MSM mallets keep thudding away at the same old themes.

  10. philj 10

    Many thanks to all concerned. A valuable resource in a barren Mainstream landscape. Our MSM has become trivialized, sensationalized, and blinkered. Poor quality media, poor quality democracy. Some great links from around the world. Heck, even some good stuff from the USA. Keep up the good fight. Kia kaha.

  11. McFlock 11

    Thanks to one and all for your efforts.

  12. Peter 12

    $300 a month, hardly enough to make you part of a left wing conspiracy. I wonder how your $300 compares to the combined monthly income of professionals such as Mr Slater and Mr Farrar?

    • ghostwhowalksnz 12.1

      Slater thinks his big ‘new improved’ Whaleoil is going to send the Herald packing.

      But he runs it from above a warehouse at 50 Stonedon Dr in East Tamaki, Im sure the Heralds window cleaning bill is greater than his entire revenue.

      His front for the business is Social Media Consultants Ltd, Whaleoil just being the masthead.

      But of course its previous home Gotcha.co.nz turned in to a flop.

      Slaters tenure as Editor of the Truth saw it go under, same goes for his previous security business CDP Security Ltd.

    • lprent 12.2

      It kind of oscillates. This is about the 6th cycle of that.

      We grow and the cost starts rising. I start organising some spare time to deal with it. When it hits about $500-600 per month I actively deal with it. Usually by moving the server to somewhere with a lower cost structure.

      The actual cost is less than $200/mo now. However having the backing infrastructure to have cool to warm fallover structures (which aren’t quite working yet as immediate fallovers) makes it cost more.

      Hopefully this weekend I will manage to get a good test. It is a pain though. I’m trying to get it so that it has no more than 5-10 minutes to automatically start a cluster up.

  13. Aaron 13

    I don’t think the daily blog is a challenge to your numbers. I never used to read political blogs then 6 months ago became a regular reader of TDB and during the election campaign started reading The Standard as well. Now I like to get to each site regularly so I suspect having a good collection of blogs is helping to grow the potential audience for everyone.

  14. Logie97 14

    … and we know it’s regularly read by the likes of Matthew Hooten.

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