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Around the Web: WaPo decides to speak English when it comes to understanding Web traffic

Shared by Tommy Thomason on April 8, 2011
Newspaper websites, Online news, Website traffic / Nieman Lab

Aren’t you tired of webspeak?  Can you remember the days when we talked about readers, not uniques or pageviews?  The Washington Post has decided to try a new language in its reports to the staff on readership of the washingtonpost.com:  English.  Pageviews have become “pages read”; unique visitors have become (drumroll here….) “readers.” As Ken Doctor, the newsonomics guru, notes in this post:  “The idea: demystify foreign terms and turn them into what they are — stats any self-respecting journalist has to care about.” And results of these analytics are that the Post knows more about its readers – for instance, that 10 percent of its audience accounts for more than a third of its traffic, and that Facebook referrals are up 238 percent. If you want to read more about measuring traffic to your site, read this blog from Associate Director Andrew Chavez.

About the author

Tommy Thomason
Director at Texas Center for Community Journalism

Tommy Thomason is the founding director of the Texas Center for Community Journalism. Thomason began his career in journalism in the early 1970s with the Associated Press, working as a sportswriter in Arkadelphia and Little Rock, Ark. He has also worked in public relations in Dallas and as a...