Projo’s online traffic slumps in wake of new website’s launch
January 13th, 2012 at 12:22 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
The Providence Journal’s new website is drawing a smaller online audience than the one it replaced in October, according to two companies that track Internet traffic.
The total number of visitors and page views to ProvidenceJournal.com/Projo.com were both down 32% in the 10 weeks ended Dec. 24 compared with the 10 weeks before the new website launched, figures from Experian Hitwise show. The paper switched to the new, scaled-down ProvidenceJournal.com site on Oct. 17.
ProvidenceJournal.com/Projo.com averaged 300,241 U.S. visitors a week between Oct. 22 and Dec. 24, down from Projo.com’s 439,013 weekly average between Aug. 13 and Oct. 15, Hitwise said. Average weekly page views declined from 1.3 million to 884,706 over the same period.
Separate figures from Nielsen also showed a decline in The Journal’s Web audience.
Projo.com averaged 498,000 unique U.S. visitors a month from July to September, according to Nielsen, while ProvidenceJournal.com/Projo.com averaged 251,000 in November. (Some content, such as the paper’s sports and politics blogs, are still hosted on the Projo.com domain.)
Nielsen cautioned that monthly audience data for news sites can fluctuate significantly “due to both seasonality and the news cycle.” As another measure, the firm pointed to Projo.com’s unique audience as a share of Boston.com’s, which averaged 9.4% from July to September and 5.1% in November.
(The Boston Globe added BostonGlobe.com, a subscription website that features all the content from the newspaper, in September, a move which may have impacted Boston.com’s traffic.)
Most of The Journal’s online content is now in a digital replica of the print edition, which is currently available at no cost as a free trial. Executives at the paper and its parent company have not released information on how much the e-edition will cost once they begin charging for it this year.
Hitwise’s Matt Tatham said he’s seen examples of new sites with paywalls that lost traffic early on but then rebounded. He also said those who visit the new ProvidenceJournal.com tend to have higher incomes than those who used to visit Projo.com.
• Related: Projo paywall will prove pivotal to the paper’s long-term health (Dec. 29)
Tags: a.h. belo, boston globe, boston.com, digital media, journalism, ken doctor, media, newspapers, paywalls, projo, providence journal, Technology
Nesi's Notes covers politics and the economy in and around Rhode Island for WPRI.com. (Twitter: 
The digital format is hard to read using Firefox – I’ve stopped trying to read the digital copy of the Journal and instead use Valley Breeze and other regional sites.
The problem with the Providence news media is there is enough news to go around but all the media outlets do stories like in People Magazine. Get into the details name names and make our criminal elected officals squeal like pigs. Go after the abuse of the taxpayers by our civil servants. Bag these dirtbags. Get after the police and general assembly condoning criminal cops and that stupid policemen bill of rights. None of the Providence news outlets have teeth. It is time to rip these people to shreds.
But how many people visit the site of that new paper, digital.olive.com or whatever it is? /snark
“He also said those who visit the new ProvidenceJournal.com tend to have higher incomes than those who used to visit Projo.com.”
So wealthy people have a higher tolerance for less information?
Snark aside, you raise a valid point about measurement, Jef. The domain for the e-edition is digital.olivesoftware.com, so these statistics would exclude the hits the digital replica gets, and considering that’s at the heart of the new strategy, it ought to be included. Problem is, that’s the domain for all of Olive’s sites, I think, so there would need to be some way to figure out how many people are going to the Projo’s area of the site to get an accurate measurement.
Dude, you need to check your voicemail. There’s a much bigger issue unfolding at the projo.
Done.
Ted, how many college students are working as slave labor (interns) at your station. Most of those students are not from Rhode Island let them go dig up stories and have the reporters make sure the stories are crediable, full of names and detailed. The young people know technology. These morons that are union hacks, elected officals and the lobbiest would not feel threatened by a college student.
too hard to navigate and very slow I find…they can charge all they want..I now read the Breeze and the Patch and or check TV station websites…
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The navigation and what is available on the new Projo is not very user friendly.
I was appualed by the fact now you go the Jobs section and it just says to visit monster.com.
As a writer on GoLocalProv, when the Projo decided to make the move, I know I was excited because it told me the Projo is out of toon with how people consume news today. It’s not surprising their numbers are what they are.