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The 10 most read Santa Cruz Sentinel stories for January 2013

February 1st, 2013 Tom Moore No comments

The Sentinel website, staff blogs and mobile apps received more than 4.8 million page views for the month of January. Below we’ve included a list of most-viewed stories. The list is topped, unfortunately, by an account of a man who adopted an unusual fighting technique. The story was picked up on the front page of fark.com and received more than 20,000 page views.

Those kind of stories, even when they get some viral attention, don’t drive the most traffic on the site. The Sentinel home page received more than 870,000 views. Photo galleries, led by shots from the Mavericks Invitation, this year and years past, generated more than 110,000 views. The Sentinel calendar (look for February updates to the most-used online calendar in the county) accounted from more than 85,000 views.

Of the total of close to 5 million views, about 20 percent (just shy of 1 million) came from mobile apps for iPhone, Android and iPad that didn’t exist in January 2011, and more than 370,000 came from m.santacruzsentinel.com – viewed on mobile web browsers.

Upcoming projects include the launch of updated tourism pages, a new commenting system (hint: Disqus), calendar updates (hint: Eventful), site redesign, continued work with the Santa Cruz Community Media Lab, more extensive use of photos.santacruzsentinel.com for local photo presentations, updates to Sentinel staff blogging platforms, an updated content management system, development of local apps from our newsroom, and we’ve been experimenting with interesting possibilities from rebelmouse.com.

With all kinds of hard work from Kirby Scudder and Wallace Baine, we’ve also launched The Muse blog – for all things related to the Creative Life in Santa Cruz County. Sign up for e-mail updates for all new posts (bottom right of the blog) to be connected with the best art & entertainment coverage.

Thanks to all who visited the Sentinel online, on your phones, tablets, and to our print and e-edition subscribers. We’re taking your news tips and suggestions 24/7.

Most viewed stories for January:

Categories: Blogs, Comments, Community Media Lab, Crime, Digital First, Monthly reports, Most Popular, New from the newsroom, Phones, Photos, Santa Cruz, mobile Tags:

The Sentinel’s 10 most viewed stories for Nov., 2012

December 3rd, 2012 Tom Moore No comments

The story about Jay Moriarity, from June of 2011, was among the Sentinel’s most popular this month

In the month of November, the Santa Cruz Sentinel website received 3,574,475 page views with 486,647 monthly unique visitors. In addition, Sentinel mobile apps received more than 700,000 page views.

The most-viewed story, about an employee who grabbed a robber’s gun, was helped by landing on the front page of fark.com. The second most popular story, Wallace Baine’s story from June of 2011 about Jay Moriarity, received attention from search traffic for Jay Moriarity as the movie “Chasing Mavericks” was released.

Other popular pages included the local election results page, which received more than 15,000 page views, the Sentinel online calendar (more than 90,000 views), and a nationally generated Victoria’s Secret slide show (63,000 views). The Sentinel’s media center, which features photos of interest updated daily from around the world, received more than 155,000 views.

Thanks to all for visiting. Here’s the list of most viewed stories.

Advertise on the Sentinel website.

Categories: Monthly reports, Most Popular, sentinel.com Tags: election, media center, monthly report, Most popular

Sentinel’s 10 most viewed stories in June 2012

July 6th, 2012 Tom Moore No comments

The Sentinel website received 3,521,933 page views and 476,167 unique visitors in the month of June. Both of those are up slightly from June, 2011. Here are the most viewed stories or pages during the month:

We also received 552,484 page views on our news apps (free on iPhone and Google Play), and 1,398 new downloads of the apps.

On YouTube, we received more than 16,000 video views, most popular was Nick Wallenda’s walk on the Boardwalk ferris wheel, but second was the reunion of a Marine and his son, upon his return from Afghanistan:

We also received nearly 45,000 views on Flickr and added more than 200 followers on Instagram (@scsentinel). Thanks for connecting with the Sentinel online!

Categories: Digital First, Monthly reports, Most Popular, New from the newsroom, Uncategorized, Video, social media Tags:

Sentinel’s most popular pages for March, 2012

April 3rd, 2012 Tom Moore 2 comments

March 2012 was the second biggest month for page views for the Sentinel website ever.

We had 3,612,051 views – only March 2011 (including tsunami coverage) had more views (3,804,403) . We had 476,986 unique monthly visitors last month, close to our average the past year.

Mobile apps
We launched our mobile news apps in February, but didn’t promote heavily until the beginning of March. We had 224,095 page views and 2,921 downloads of Android and iPhone apps.

Most-viewed stories for March:

Video stats for March (thanks Christina Gullickson):

Total video views via YouTube: 22,860

The Sentinel’s most popular pages in February

March 2nd, 2012 Tom Moore No comments

Here are the 10 most viewed stories and pages from the Sentinel website in February:

For the month of February, we had 3,294,380 page views, up about 300,000 from January and up more than 500,000 from February 2011.

We had 449,495 unique visitors, up more than 40,000 from January and more than 65,000 from February 2011.

One of our favorite photos from the popular 'Only In Santa Cruz' contest in February.

Among projects, we launched the Santa Cruz Community Media Lab – connecting with more than 90 bloggers on the landing page. But running behind that landing page, we’re connecting on twitter, facebook, google+, youtube, tumblr, and building lists, meeting face-to-face and talking about ways to get more voices heard more often in more ways.

Also in February, we’re breaking more news on twitter. Reporters Donna Jones and Jondi Gumz, relatively new to the twitter world, both went past 100 followers, as did the @santacruzfood. Reporter Jason Hoppin broke news of how much a proposed food truck bill would impact the industry in an attempt to offer better meals for kids. Hoppin broke down the data, built maps, and tweeted them to a wide audience before the story appeared in the paper.

Reporter Jessica Pasko went over 1,000 followers. All our reporters know that news breaks on twitter and that they can tweet what they’re seeing and learning directly to our home page.

In other social media, the Sentinel twitter account is approaching 5,000 followers. We’ve maxed out on 5,000 facebook friends, but we’re adding fans (2,269) and subscribers (nearly 800) daily. Our Flickr account has had more than a half million views in the past year, and we plan to make photos and video a bigger emphasis as we go forward.

Our award-winning sports staff also had one of its biggest months of web traffic, we launched a new version of the weekly Guide section, including QR codes linking smart phones to web pages. And, we’ve quietly launched news apps for Android and iPhone – much more about those soon! And finally, we put a GoPro video camera on the helmet of a roller derby ref.

Thanks for connecting with the Sentinel.

Home / 15-year-old Aptos girl sliced in fight at her birthday party		11,424	0.3%
17.	Verve / SantaCruzSentinel.com: Local News		11,079	0.3%
18.	Mobile Obituaries Pages		10,361	0.3%
19.	Obituaries		9,405	0.3%
20.	Home / Santa Cruz pro surfer Anthony Ruffo sentenced to jail for drug dealing		9,120	0.3%
21.	Home / Police: Drunken man packs loaded gun at bar, patrons take him down		8,242	0.3%
22.	Home / Santa Cruz Police: Woman arrested three times in five days		8,201	0.2%
23.	Verve / SantaCruzSentinel.com: Cops and Courts		8,145	0.2%
24.	Home / Apple road trip ad boosts Santa Cruz profile nationally		7,983	0.2%
25.	Home / Owner of three Santa Cruz markets arrested, Santa Cruz district attorney says		7,918	0.2%
26.	Letters		7,775	0.2%
27.	Home / New dog leash warnings divide Santa Cruz County residents: Rio del Mar beaches remain open af		7,693	0.2%
28.	Weather		7,459	0.2%
29.	http://www.uclick.com/client/scs/gpd		7,208	0.2%
30.	Home / Ristorante Barolo due for Restaurant: Impossible TV makeover Wednesday		7,098	0.2%
31.	http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/santacruzsentinel/obituary-browse.aspx		6,919	0.2%
32.	Local News / Police: Mayhem motorcycle gang members some of 9 arrested		6,709	0.2%
33.	Home / Man stabs wife in face, teen daughter in mouth, deputies say		6,547	0.2%
34.	Home / Police: Mayhem motorcycle gang members some of 9 arrested		6,501	0.2%
35.	Home / Food Network’s chief chef Robert Irvine gives Ristorante Barolo a new look		6,421	0.2%
36.	Home / Two arrested after allegedly trying to retrieve friend’s body from Santa Cruz crematorium		6,291	0.2%
37.	Home / Capitola economy: Vacancies in Mall, Mercantile; Blockbuster closing but new construction on		6,162	0.2%
38.	http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/santacruzsentinel/obituary-search.aspx		6,113	0.2%
39.	Home / Fisherman dies on Rio del Mar Beach after getting caught in riptide		6,044	0.2%
40.	Home / Elderly man falls over cliff near Felton, plunging 250 feet to his death		5,665	0.2%
41.	http://www.santacruzsentinel.com		5,379	0.2%
42.	Home / TV murder mystery to air Monday on Santa Cruz woman’s slain husband		5,176	0.2%
43.	Home / Highway 17 northbound lanes closed for more than two hours Sunday night near Summit		5,090	0.2%
44.	Home / Santa Cruz landlord issued correction notice for roach infestation		5,050	0.2%
45.	Home / Proposed Montessori charter school creates education divide: Parents want choice, while other		5,019	0.2%
46.	Verve / SantaCruzSentinel.com : Cops and Courts		4,972	0.2%
47.	Home / ‘Mavericks’ movie crew returns to Santa Cruz, Half Moon Bay for big-wave shots		4,960	0.2%
48.	Opinion		4,938	0.1%
49.	Home / Woman accused of stealing hundreds of dollars from local nonprofit organization

Posted from .

Categories: Community Media Lab, Digital First, Monthly reports, Most Popular, Phones, Uncategorized, smartphones, social media Tags:

July 2011 web traffic: Thanks for your 3,528,321 views

August 1st, 2011 Tom Moore No comments

After a month of breaking news that included plane, helicopter and car crashes, and three murders, the Sentinel’s online viewership continues to grow.

We had 3,528,321 page views for the month of July, third highest month ever for the Sentinel. (Top was March of 2011, with storms and tsunami). Second best month was August of 2009 (Lockheed Fire).

We had 866,045 unique daily visitors, also third best month ever for our site (March of 2011 and January 2011 were better).

Among other noteworthy trends, we had 295,461 page views on mobile devices, most ever in a month for our site.

More than 5 percent of our traffic was referred to us from social networks, and 90 percent of that traffic arrived via Facebook and all its forms.

Other July highlights included Wharf to Wharf coverage (more than 45,000 page views) and the reintroduction of the party house database (more than 9,000 page views of our searchable database and more than 26,000 views of new Google map).

Here’s the list of most viewed pages and stories for July:

1.	Home	799,502	22.7%
2.	Verve / SantaCruzSentinel.com	135,140	3.8%
3.	Other	97,462	2.8%
4.	Local News	54,017	1.5%
5.	santacruzsentinelcom – Search Results – News / PG: 1	49,927	1.4%
6.	Obituaries	43,336	1.2%
7.	http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/santacruzsentinel/obituary.aspx	31,728	0.9%
8.	http://events.santacruzsentinel.com/search	25,651	0.7%
9.	http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/santacruzsentinel	21,377	0.6%
10.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 Tip of the Hat	20,849	0.6%
11.	http://www.legacy.com/guestbook/santacruzsentinel/guestbook.aspx	20,622	0.6%
12.	Home / Real Estate transactions database	17,383	0.5%
13.	Home / NTSB: Four dead in Watsonville plane crash including two children	16,626	0.5%
14.	http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/doubleclick/DARTIframe.html	16,347	0.5%
15.	Home / Man’s penis cut off, put through garbage disposal	13,155	0.4%
16.	Home / CHP says wrong-way driver intentionally caused fatal Highway 17 crash: Soquel man arrested in	12,686	0.4%
17.	Home / CHP said wrong-way driver intentionally caused fatal crash: Soquel man arrested in collision	12,564	0.4%
18.	Sports	12,367	0.4%
19.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2008 Halloween Costume	11,826	0.3%
20.	Home / ‘Hoarders’ features Boulder Creek property, highlights man’s battle with county	10,949	0.3%
21.	Verve / SantaCruzSentinel.com : Local News	10,867	0.3%
22.	Home / Great White sighting at Beach Boardwalk	9,870	0.3%
23.	Verve / SantaCruzSentinel.com: Local News	9,748	0.3%
24.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 O Canada	8,676	0.2%
25.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2008 Baby Face	8,599	0.2%
26.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 Fancy Food	8,596	0.2%
27.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 Board Art	8,532	0.2%
28.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 Boys and Girls of Summer	8,513	0.2%
29.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2010 Thanks Giving	8,413	0.2%
30.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 Watch the Birdie	8,327	0.2%
31.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2008 Best Tattoo	8,212	0.2%
32.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2010 Almost Famous	8,174	0.2%
33.	http://www.uclick.com/client/scs/gpd	7,971	0.2%
34.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 The Eyes Have It	7,770	0.2%
35.	Letters	7,750	0.2%
36.	Local News / Woman identified in wrong-way fatal crash in Santa Cruz	7,588	0.2%
37.	Home / Woman identified in wrong-way fatal crash in Santa Cruz	7,406	0.2%
38.	Home / Airplane nose dives into Watsonville Community Hospital, two people dead	7,008	0.2%
39.	Home / Party house database: Santa Cruz Police list, with map, of houses cited for loud and unruly b	6,742	0.2%
40.	Home / Father killed cancer patient son, then himself in home near Los Gatos, officials say	6,477	0.2%
41.	Weather	6,430	0.2%
42.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2009 Retro 70′s	6,311	0.2%
43.	Home / Two dead in Watsonville police standoff on Lawrence Avenue	6,296	0.2%
44.	Home / Wrong-way driver to make initial court appearance in Santa Cruz as two families mourn	5,928	0.2%
45.	Home / Wrong-way fatal suspect’s plea delayed in Santa Cruz courtroom	5,886	0.2%
46.	Home / Police: 13-year-old boy sexually battered outside bathroom at the wharf	5,874	0.2%
47.	Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 Big Trees	5,804	0.2%
48.	Home / Community mourns death of Houghton family at service in Aptos	5,618	0.2%
49.	Horoscopes	5,514	0.2%
50.	Verve / SantaCruzSentinel.com: Cops and Courts	5,507	0.2%

Total

3,528,321

Categories: Monthly reports, mobile Tags:

Chart: Sentinel.com growth in visitors

July 21st, 2011 Tom Moore 2 comments

Here’s a look at the Sentinel’s growth in daily unique visitors per month since 2008.

Categories: Monthly reports, charts, sentinel.com Tags:

Traffic snarl and mobile traffic on our site

July 1st, 2011 Tom Moore No comments

On Tuesday, when traffic was snarled for hours on Highway 1 after a wreck near Rio del Mar, our site received more than 166,000 page views, one of the top 20 traffic days on the site. Of those, more than 11,000 were on mobile devices, one of our biggest days ever on mobile. We suspect a few people parked in traffic found our site while they waited.

For the month of June, we had more than 235,000 page views on mobile devices and we’ve had more than 1.3 million mobile views in 2011. For the year, we should just about double our mobile views from 2010 (1,586,219).

We expect mobile to grow at that pace or more as people adopt smartphones and we continue to provide real-time updates as news breaks.

Here’s a look at our mobile traffic since January of 2010 (page views):

2010:
Jan.: 95,016
Feb.: 84,139
March: 98,733
April: 120,291
May: 141,245
Jun: 133,360
July: 136,620
Aug: 140,724
Sept.:140,916
Oct.: 163,248
Nov.: 171,638
Dec.: 160,289

2010:
Jan.: 191,391
Feb.: 174,728
March.: 245,575
April: 217,856
May: 226,191
June: 237,944

Overall for the month of June, mobile is still a small percentage of our 3,301,320 page views. Our monthly unique viewers were up to 472,133, as compared to 369,495 in 2010. Here’s a look at the most-viewed pages the past month:

Page


	Page Views

1.

Home

741,196

22.5%

2.

Verve / SantaCruzSentinel.com

108,931

3.3%

3.

Other

91,842

2.8%

4.

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/doubleclick/DARTIframe.html

84,024

2.5%

5.

Sentinel Forum

52,519

1.6%

6.

santacruzsentinelcom – Search Results – News / PG: 1

47,460

1.4%

7.

Local News

41,836

1.3%

8.

Obituaries

38,067

1.2%

9.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/santacruzsentinel/obituary.aspx

32,290

1.0%

10.

Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 Boys and Girls of Summer

23,786

0.7%

11.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/santacruzsentinel

22,164

0.7%

12.

http://events.santacruzsentinel.com/search

21,613

0.7%

13.

Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 Congradulations

17,879

0.5%

14.

Home / Real Estate transactions database

17,589

0.5%

15.

http://www.legacy.com/guestbook/santacruzsentinel/guestbook.aspx

15,646

0.5%

16.

Verve / SantaCruzSentinel.com : Local News

14,928

0.5%

17.

Sports

13,062

0.4%

18.

Home / Body found near UCSC campus likely victim of hit and run

12,782

0.4%

19.

Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2008 Halloween Costume

10,432

0.3%

20.

Verve / SantaCruzSentinel.com : Cops and Courts

9,864

0.3%

21.

Weather

9,838

0.3%

22.

Home / Helicopters fly crash victims from Highway 1 in Aptos

9,834

0.3%

23.

Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2008 Best Tattoo

9,724

0.3%

24.

Home / Police shoot and kill 22-year-old Watsonville man inside sporting goods store

9,652

0.3%

25.

Home / Woman ditches her bikini on Highway 17 as CHP officer tries to arrest her for flashing passin

9,548

0.3%

26.

Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 Board Art

8,709

0.3%

27.

http://www.uclick.com/client/scs/gpd

8,312

0.3%

28.

Letters

7,641

0.2%

29.

Home / A Nightmare for neighbors

7,474

0.2%

30.

Home / Santa Cruz fatal hit-and-run defendant pleads not guilty

6,683

0.2%

31.

Home / Arrest details emerge in case of bicyclist killed on Empire Grade Road

6,421

0.2%

32.

Home / Man who died trying to cross Highway 1 identified

6,199

0.2%

33.

Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 O Canada

6,192

0.2%

34.

http://www.uclick.com/client/scs/cpa

5,749

0.2%

35.

Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2009 Retro 70′s

5,625

0.2%

36.

Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2010 Thanks Giving

5,617

0.2%

37.

Horoscopes

5,572

0.2%

38.

Home / Bicyclist dies on Soquel-San Jose Road

5,541

0.2%

39.

Local News / Body found near UCSC campus likely victim of hit and run

5,269

0.2%

40.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/santacruzsentinel/obituary-browse.aspx

5,268

0.2%

41.

Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 Spring Has Sprung

5,209

0.2%

42.

http://santacruzsentinel.kaango.com/browse/real-estate-rental-sale/775

5,107

0.2%

43.

Home / Eye of the storm: Man seeks owner of camera that was lost at sea in 2007

5,051

0.2%

44.

Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2011 Watch the Birdie

4,977

0.2%

45.

Home / Dominican Hospital fined $50,000 for patient death

4,939

0.1%

46.

RSS / Body found near UCSC campus likely victim of hit and run

4,926

0.1%

47.

Home / CHP: Car in fatal hit-and-run found

4,843

0.1%

48.

Opinion

4,705

0.1%

49.

Santa Cruz Sentinel Photo Contest : 2010 Almost Famous

4,695

0.1%

50.

Home / CHP interviews driver in Monday’s fatal bicycle crash in Soquel

4,656

0.1%

Total

3,301,320

Categories: Monthly reports, Uncategorized, mobile, sentinel.com, smartphones Tags:

Site statistics during hunt for fugitive in Santa Cruz

December 1st, 2010 Tom Moore 1 comment

Our website’s readership has never been higher than for the five hours that the armed fugitive was loose in Santa Cruz. We were receiving more than 35,000 page views an hour. Our views for the day of the ordeal were 252,430, sixth best day in our history.

Here’s what the traffic spike looked like:
Page Views Report - Mon. 29 Nov. 2010 [Santa Cruz (2006 ADPV- 73,091)]_1291237867752.png

Here’s the list of all-time best days for the Sentinel:

Aug. 6, 2008:         399,413 – Baby photo contest
Aug. 13, 2009:         307,331 – Lockheed Fire
Aug 14, 2009:         266,804 – Lockheed Fire
Jun 21, 2008         260,111 – Trabing Fire
Sep 10, 2010:         255,386 – San Bruno explosion
Nov. 29, 2010:        252,353 - Fugitive loose in Santa Cruz
Jun 12, 2008         236,002 – Martin Fire
Jun 20, 2008         212,032 – Trabing Fire
Aug. 5, 2008:         210,808 – Baby photo contest
Nov. 2, 2010:        198,176 – Election

We were first on the story, quickly added a google map of events (which has received more than 100,000 views – not counted above) updated often, received pictures and video by cell phone and from photographers and reporters at the scene. We added a slide show, updated the photo blog and posted an early version of our A1 that evening.

The main story was recommended by more than 3,000 people on Facebook (most I’ve ever seen for a Sentinel story). We also sent out our updates and photos on both Twitter and Facebook and we added more than 50 friends during the day.

For the month of November, we received 3,475,482 page views and had 429,262 unique monthly visitors. That’s up from 2,941,376 views and 355,158 visitors last November. November 2010 was also our biggest month ever for total daily unique visitors. Here’s a graph of what our daily unique visitors looks like since Jan. 1, 2007:

Daily Unique Visitors Report - Mon. 1 Jan. 2007 - Tue. 30 Nov. 2010 [Santa Cruz (2006 ADPV- 73,091)]_1291237595916.png

Categories: Crime, Monthly reports, Santa Cruz, sentinel.com Tags:

Most popular in July 2010

August 1st, 2010 Tom Moore No comments

Here’s a list of our most popular stories for the month of July. We had 3,154,466 page views in the month, up 20 percent from the previous July. We had 385,896 monthly unique visitors, up 29 percent from July 2009. Here were the most popular pages on the Sentine website: