Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Clicks Actually Not the Most Important Media Audience Measurement Statistic

Journalists always brag on number of clicks, if they get them.  But it is not necessarily the most important statistic.

The Charleston Daily Mail until recently had the address www.dailymail.com .  To someone not paying attention, this could have been easily confused with www.dailymail.co.uk    This is the home of the Daily Mail, far and away the most viewed news website in the world.

Obviously there had to be some spillover traffic with people looking for Daily Mail who actually ended up accidentally at Charleston Daily Mail.  So why didn't the paper based in the West Virginia state capital simply rest on their laurels of massive numbers of clicks?

To explain why they made the change, deterring the accidental visitors, Charleston Daily Mail editor Brad McElhinny explained  on Twitter that "they depressed time spent on site figures as they navigated away immediately."

As it would be difficult for the Charleston Daily Mail to find a way to take advantage of the accidental traffic from readers of the Daily Mail,  this move seems to make sense.


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