Here are BikePortland’s traffic stats from the month of October, 2009.
The most popular post of the month (counted by page views using Google Analytics) was our story covering the Oregon Manifest Constructor’s Design Challenge. That was followed by the unusual mention of a story outside our region highlighting the death of a Texas couple while riding their tandem and the leniency given to the person who killed them due to limited rules on distracted driving.
Following on a lighter and long sustained note came the Hopworks Beerfiets story we published back in September which rattled around the web enough to place it as the third most popular post during October. In fourth was the Mayor’s proclamation of October 9th as Bicycle Messenger Appreciation Day following in the footsteps of San Francisco and Toronto.
Rounding out the five most read stories on BikePortland in October was yet another article published the month prior. The Flaming Lips’ call for naked cyclists was referenced on the awesomely irreverent blog bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com which drew another 1900 readers to the casting call story.
This is one way to measure popularity or impact of what gets published here. Another is to check the volume of public comments left under a given article. You can do this by reading the comment volume link at the bottom of each post.
Here are the overall stats for the month:
Visits – 184,817
Average visit length – 02:28
Pages viewed – 420,480
Front page stories posted – 111
Stolen Bike Listings – 69
Top Five Stories (In terms of pageviews analyzed by Google Analytics):
1. The bikes have been raced, judged, and ogled. And the winners are…
2. Tragedy and outrage in Texas
3. Introducing the Hopworksfiets: Beer, pizza, music, and true Portland spirit, all on one bike
4. Mayor says today is Bicycle Messenger Appreciation Day
5. Naked bikers needed for Flaming Lips music video to be shot in Portland next week
Check out our past traffic stats and top stories here.