AboveTopSecret.com Traffic From April, 2007 to April, 2009

It's been a while since we posted any kind of comprehensive look at our current traffic trends, and I thought now seems like an opportune time. Why now you might ask? April of 2007 represents the point in time where we-three Amigos (Mark, Simon, and myself) began to really commit ourselves to moving AboveTopSecret.com from an interesting niche site that was a "serious hobby," into our passionate business venture.

We actually had several serious expansion conversations prior to April of 2007, but as we look back, that month is really the significant turning point. In March of 2007, we rejected a rather significant buy-out offer from a good-sized media company that had a major web property and a few smaller site. While the money was good (for our size at the time), we would have eventually lost control of our beloved creation. So we focused on doing it ourselves with a small group of private investors.

Now, two years later, our traffic (as measured in Quantcast) has exceeded that of the company that wanted to buy us, and the growth charts are rather impressive.



[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/809209a339c0.jpg[/atsimg]
This chart shows two-years of growth, measuring our "absolute unique visitors" on a weekly basis. As you can see, we've more than tripled the number of individual unique visitors coming to ATS within about 22 months, and are trending to quadruple the April 2007 numbers by summer of this year.

Recently, during this swine-flue traffic peak, we've been averaging 80,000 to 90,000 daily unique visitors. And a good number of those new unique visitors who came here to learn about swine flu have stuck around to read other topics.



[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/64efd1e7f27e.jpg[/atsimg]
This next chart shows actual weekly traffic as measured in page-views... and just like the visitors chart, we've more than tripled our numbers of April, 2007. As you can see there are spikes in this chart as various topics have generated peaks of interest. Also, there are some dips which correspond to seasonal lows... November/December holiday months are always slow periods for us.



[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/d8dc9b1b877d.jpg[/atsimg]
This chart, weekly views of the site home page over the past two years, is particularly stunning, show a five-fold increase in activity to our main site home page. Our improved home page design, member-flagging, and increased awareness of ATS have all contributed to the steep upward growth shown here.



[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/d4f67694e6c4.jpg[/atsimg]
No website can survive if it's an island unto itself, and the number of visitors we get from search indicates we (ATS management) and you (ATS members) are doing several things right. Again, a tripling of activity from search engines over a two-year period. Amazing.



[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/b97e6ea67519.jpg[/atsimg]
And finally, more than anything else, the one true measure of a site's relative worth is how many people visit via voluntarily placed links on other websites. This graph shows our weekly visitors from referring websites over the past two years -- websites that range from mainstream news to personal blogs and everything in-between. Again, strong growth with lots of interesting spikes.



For those interested in seeing more granular monthly data, you can visit our stats page and download PDF summaries of monthly traffic reports, beginning in September of 2006.

It's been a wild ride these past two years, thanks in a very-large part to the contributions of our members and the excellent community decorum that is unique to ATS. I want to thank all our members for helping to make this stunning growth a possibility, and assure you that the best is yet to come!

Oh yes... we do have more plans.



edit to add...


And you don't have to just take our word for it. Quantcast, a third-party website traffic ranking service pretty much shows the same thing (the June '07 dip is from a time where we disabled their code as they had server trouble at the time).
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/791902db54d0.gif[/atsimg]

[edit on 1-5-2009 by SkepticOverlord]

That's awesome! More and more people are opening their eyes to the truth or trying to at least!

Applause for ATS!

Then I have a question, if it isn't broken why fix it?

There was alot of things we were able to do back in 07 that we can not do now..

Such as off the top of my head 1 line posts.. Alot can be said in 3 or 4 words. not always have to be a book when making a point.

Anyway I guess we(as in the people of this forum) are doing an aight job.. Just would like to not see so much I am god on here...

Anyway just a thought, I dont mean to sound mean but meh you get what you get sometimes.

Congratulations

It's nice to see that more and more people are looking for unique explanations/intelligent discussions to alternative topics, rather then referring to only the mainstream media

[edit on 1-5-2009 by baseball101]

Congratulations. I hope these unique visitors will bring logic and civility with them. Welcome all.

That's great. More people are getting their eyes opened. Good news for everyone!!!

Great information. This site has come a long way. Keep the good things coming and I'll be here to stay.....

-Dev

Glad to see it's doing well

I am sure that it is no coincidence that the real growth happened right around the time that I joined......

I kid.

Good to see business is picking up.

Good stuff!

By the way I'm guessing the whole blossom goodchild incident helped with that big increase around october 2008, haha! Good times lol.


[edit on 1-5-2009 by _Phoenix_]

You owners here at ATS deserve nothing but serious cudos!!!! But I'll tell ya, in this day and time of change, we must all learn to overcome and adapt! What I am trying to say is this, if you could sell this site and make a tremendous profit, I say, "go for it"! Nobody could blame any of you!

Business is business! Start up another site, use what you have learned by developing ATS the way you have and brainstorm a whole new set of ideas like alex jones done at infowars. Now, alex has prisonplanet.com, and the jonesreport.com. You really wanna make ATS rock if you kept it? Hire some of your own journalists to cover some of the topics here at your site!

People will pay for the truth, and knowledge is power, and we the people should be the ones in power, not our gov't! But I do congratulate you people here at ATS for a well put together site!

I have two questions (if I may)

Who were the mainstream news sites that directly linked to ATS?

And how much money have you made from 2007?

And yes, glad to see its growing.

Thanks.

Looks like more people are openning their eyes to the truth!

Im a fairly new member, but a "lurker" for some time.

If i had a beer, a toast to ATS!

Jacob

That's wonderful news,I am glad ATS is 'exploding' on the scene much more.

reply to post by JacobNH



Heck,I'm about to have a mix drink,I'll cheer for ya!

It is nice to see people are searching for the truth and not willing to just sit back and listen to MSM - they are wanting to look for answers themselves.

Very Awesome numbers and increase!

OH one other thing... Please don't ever sell to some organization or company - it would probably be some govt. entity behind it, and they would find out who all of us are.




[edit on 1-5-2009 by questioningall]

My friends and family and myself owe huge F'You Thank You to CNN... and other mainstream media for bringing us to ATS.

We now watch FOX as most of the people that can stomach TV News still tune to FOX over any other source; we also temper that with MUCH more internet based stories with credible sources.

Thanks to ATS ... Continued growth and Especially don't allow corruption to creep in...

Cheers!

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Well done guys, if I were in your area I would buy you a beer for your hard work.

I am sure that you guys will have a beer anyways looking at these results.

I hope that you will stick with the site and never sell it off, the potential is in the figures.

Kudos!



[edit on 1-5-2009 by XXXN3O]

WooHoo, group hug.
That's really great.
I have a question, any ideas why it temporarily dropped right after the election?

- edit - BTW, where can I get my ATS swine flu mask?

[edit on 1-5-2009 by Alxandro]

Well done!
I'm a one man army for ATS -ask my co workers they are well informed
I should get some candy for them logging in.
If I had a gripe I would say curb the legalism and let it flow.After all you can just kick there a$$ if you no like