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5,000,000 Pageviews in November!

by Fraser Cain on December 1, 2011

Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter

Universe Today stats (always lower in the summer)

I know I rarely share the business side of Universe Today, but here’s a very interesting metric: visitors to Universe Today viewed a total of 5 million pages in November, 2011. That’s up about 100% from this time last year.

So, if you think that interest in science and astronomy is declining, allow me to offer this retort. You’re totally wrong. Millions of people every month are subscribed to, or seeking out, the material we’re offering here on Universe Today. People are choosing to read a website that’s only about space and astronomy. You can see the demand for shows like Mythbusters, podcasts like the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe, or blogs like Bad Astronomy.

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I’ll put most of the kudos on Nancy Atkinson’s leadership and the amazing writing team we’ve got here: 15 contributors at last count, growing every month. But the real heroes (to steal a line from Stephen Colbert) are you, the science enthusiasts. It’s your interest in science news that keeps the whole engine going; it’s thrilling to be a part of it, and I guarantee you haven’t seen anything yet.

Thank you for reading, sharing and participating in Universe Today.

Fraser Cain
Publisher

P.S. And for those of you wondering if you can actually make a living as a “blogger”. The answer is yes, and it’s getting easier every day.

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About

Fraser Cain is the publisher of Universe Today. He's also the co-host of Astronomy Cast with Dr. Pamela Gay.

  • http://twitter.com/southowramonsea petr

    Well done! I always enjoy reading UniverseToday (and listening to AstronomyCast). Keep up the good work (:

  • Wolter

    Way to go, thumbs up :)

  • Anonymous

    First of all congratulations! :) Well deserved!

    But I’ve got question: Are the 5 million the number of hits or really of “different” IPs? Because I, for instance, click on your page like 5 times per day. That is 150 times per month (holy crap ;) ), which would reduce the number of readers to, say, 33.333. :-D

    As I said: Congratulations! Keep up the good work! Very well done, indeed!!!

    • https://plus.google.com/u/0/110701307803962595019/posts Fraser Cain

      I picked 5 million pageviews because it’s a nice round number. :-) You’re referring to unique visitors, which is more like 3 million people.

      • Anonymous

        Before anyone misunderstands: My statement above was meant to be funny. ;-)

        3 Million? That’s quite a number! :-)

  • Sam Wilson

    Great stuff guys. CONGRATULATIONS!

    I didn’t find science nearly as interesting as it should have been via school. Podcasts and the web made it happen for me.

    The web can bring Sagan like powers to those who have the passion to write and educate.

  • Ethan Siegel

    Fraser, you get more than 10x my traffic, and you totally deserve it for what you’ve created here!

    Congratulations on your (and Universe Today’s) success and may it continue far into the future!

    • https://plus.google.com/u/0/110701307803962595019/posts Fraser Cain

      Thanks man, but I’ve got to say, you’re rocking it too. I just had a head start.

  • calciu

    congratulations!
    keep up the good work

  • Carl Garcia

    Hello, I hate to say that I suffer the lack of a complete formal education. And that I have trouble understanding some concepts talked about in relation to science. But, I must say that Astronomy/Cosmology and other related sciences including Physics & the Quantum mech stuff really fascinate me. I have since childhood always looked to the stars and wondered, what is the place I’m in? What is really happening here? I can even honestly say that existence sometimes scares me. And now knowing a few things about what is happening , I find myself in awe. Understanding what a star really is and how it was formed is to me just incredible (Iron, star poison heh). I now look up to the skies and see so much more!
    And thanks to Universe today (I visit this site everyday), I can get all the latest space news. Great stuff guys!

  • Vic

    Now, in exchange for all the page views we’ve given you, how about getting rid of all the social networking clutter on the site that makes it slow to load and brings all my browsers to a standstill for 10 seconds or more? Even ad-block doesn’t eliminate the loathsome peeping social networking buttons at the bottom of each page.

    Loading your homepage gave these results: 272 requests, 1.14MB transferred, and latency up to 8 seconds for some elements on the page, and that’s without having emptied the browser cache first.

    Have a look at this story: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/11/29/thenextweb-shit-ass-website

    And this one: http://www.loopinsight.com/2011/11/30/shit-ass-websites/

    Please, consider improving the performance of your website because for the past few months it’s been about as fast as a 70s-era Eastern Block junker.

    • Kev Girard

      Especially that popup in the lower right hand corner. Is there an option to disable all popups?

    • Anonymous

      This has been addressed already. Install “NoScript” and allow Universetoday.com and Disqus.com. One other I had to allow just yesterday was Googleusercontent.com as the recent comments were blocked otherwise.

      • Anonymous

        Scratch that, My recent comments disappeared again so, allowing Googleusercontent.com isn’t necessary. Fraser must be in site experimenting mode. Btw if and when they do reappear, I’d like to see it expanded to > 5 comments. Sorry for harping :)

        • Anonymous

          This is really getting to be a pain. Recent comments still not displayed, I tried allowing gooogleusercontent.com once again and whala, they are back. What is going on? Why is this having an affect on the ‘recent comment’ list?

      • Vic

        That’s not a solution; that’s a band-aid.

        NoScript, while useful (especially on Windows), is a pain in the butt. Every site I visit, I have to configure custom settings. Also, NoScript isn’t available for Safari, my browser of choice. Using NoScript to speed up a webpage is similar to adding hot sauce or salt to bland restaurant food: it means that the restaurant and the chef are crap.

        The real problem is that universetoday.com is a badly designed, bandwidth-hungry, slow site. It’s looks like a Geocities page.

        At least it isn’t as bad as space.com

        • Anonymous

          Band-aid yes but, it circumvents the problem for me. Trying to get the recent comments list back, I did notice that the NoScript blocked site list randomly changes in that it keeps adding new sites. Ex. this one just appeared; simplereach.com. and this Googleusercontent.com.
          Btw, nothing I’ve tried so far gets the recent comment list to display. Is this a maintenance issue?

        • Anonymous

          Space.com’s recent change to their current format, with the accompanied arbitrary decision to drop the space.com login for commenting, is the reason I started looking for another website to view this type of information. I found universetoday.com during that search and have been very happy with the better writing, better content, and ability to post without having to be a member of some other website. I can’t remember if I was already a disqus user before this site, but becoming one wasn’t the hassle using the other posting options on space.com would have been.

          While the delay is only minorly annoying to me, having it load faster (especially when i’m on my slow working netbook using wireless) would definitely improve the user experience here.

          Overall, however, I’m glad to have been helping you keep your numbers up for the site! :D

      • Anonymous

        I used adblock plus on firefox to get rid of that thing. And it works perfectly.

    • Vic

      For instance, check out this website: http://www.verticalgardendesign.com/

      Beautiful, elegant, clean design with lots of content on the front page. Subtle social networking buttons at the bottom of the page. And it loads fast.

  • Clint Leifert

    2 comments:
    1) Congratulations!
    2) You could easily double that making mobile access easier (accessing both UT and BAUT on my HTC is still an EXTREMELY irritating experience)

    • https://plus.google.com/u/0/110701307803962595019/posts Fraser Cain

      I do want to make a better mobile experience. The trick is making it work with the Thesis theme I’m using. I try to figure that out every few weeks and then give up in frustration.

      I’ll take another crack at it.

      • https://plus.google.com/u/0/110701307803962595019/posts Fraser Cain

        Okay, try it now on a mobile device… better?

        • squidgeny

          Nice work! I’ve been waiting for this :D

          Previously, loading UT on my android xperia was a nightmare.

        • Anonymous

          Hi Fraiser,

          Speaking of mobile stuff…

          First off, you are seriously my hero. I have been listening to your podcast with pamela for a very long time, (now years). I’ve also been software developer for 25+ years and love science more than anything.

          UniverseTodayRocks.com – If I had time, I would create that site…

          I did actually check about 2 years ago if Pamela was married (or single). Yes, I am a fan (not the crazy type :-) She is very cool too.

          For a couple of years (a long time ago), I have thought about following a similar path as you (techie with science/astronomy site). You represent us well as a fellow Canadian with an awesome setup. Finally, I chose a different path, which occupies all of my time. Currently, I’m president of MobiiltyGo.com, a small but international company with offices in a couple of continents, soon to open another in Milano Italy.

          It would by my honour to offer you an “app” for your audience (which includes me!). (No charge for you dude, but one day if you can swing it, I would like to meet you to shake your hand and have a beer).

          Congrats on the 5M pv’s/month, that’s awesome.

          Cheers,
          Dan

  • Anonymous

    Frazier you seem to be headed in the same direction as Miles O’Brian? That is to say… network connex and/or beyond? You WILL come back and visit once in a while… won’t you?

    • Anonymous

      I’d like to see a science, astronomy video/short/report with you and Dr. Pamela Gay on Jon Stewart or Stephan Colbert! No kidding! You guys! What size shoe do you wear? OR praps science contributors on CURRENT TV? Talk to Al….

      • Anonymous

        Start with a thang about 2012 bunk?

  • Mike Salway

    Well done Fraser, I truly admire your success and wish you all the best for the future. Promoting science and astronomy, and making it reachable and understandable by the public, is a shared long-time goal for both of us, I’m sure.
    Congrats on this fantastic milestone and I look forward to watching UT grow even more over the next few years.

  • sharad richardet

    Dear fraser,
    I Love This site and how it allows me to keep up to date on space, I mean you add like 5 articles a day, Unfortunately The only Thing that keeps me coming so much is because my life allows it because of debate season. This year’s policy debate resolution is space and as a result there may have been more visitors in the past month…

  • squidgeny

    The only thing that annoys me is the ads. I would glady pay for a “premium access” account if I could see UT without the ads!

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