Traffic Booming on Areas of NY Times Web Site That Had Been Members-Only

by Alex Patriquin, Compete.com, blog.compete.com

Compete.com blogger Alex Patriquin writes in an October 16, 2007 post that nearly a month after the New York Times ended its exclusive TimesSelect service for premium online content, traffic to areas of the site that were previously off-limits to non-members has soared.

Patriquin reports that since the TimesSelect shutdown, unique visitor traffic to the Opinion section of the nytimes.com has more than doubled and overall traffic to nytimes.com has grown about 10%.

Patriquin writes:

Nearly a month after the New York Times shut down TimesSelect, the subscription-based service for premium content on NYTimes.com, traffic to areas of the site that were previously members-only is flowing fast and free. With popular columnists like Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd drawing thousands of curious readers and fans, the Opinion section has more than doubled unique visitors, while the overall NYTimes.com site has grown by roughly 10% in the same period.

The Op-Ed section reached 560,057 unique visitors last week, up from 245,942 for the week ending 09/15/07, while overall site traffic hovered around 3.8M, up from 3.4M in the same period. Op-Ed columns have also driven major viral traffic, claiming 4 out of 5 Most E-Mailed stories in today’s online edition.

TimesSelect, launched exactly two years prior to its closure on September 17th, put the Opinion section, weekly crossword, and Archives behind a paid subscription firewall. The service had a lukewarm reception from readers, less than 10% of whom signed up as paying subscribers.

Since September 17th, the Times has charged only for access to the crosswords and Archive articles dating from 1923 to 1986. Access is free for the Op-Ed section and Archives from 1851 to 1922 and 1987 to the present.

Times management also cited Google’s rising importance as a referral source in the decision to discontinue TimesSelect. In September 2006, Google referrals overtook those visitors who set NYTimes.com as their homepage or received an inbound link from an email client...

Click here for Patriquin's post in its entirety on Compete.com.