Reach for the stars
Wings Over Scotland readership stats for February. Click to size-up.
Bullet points below for fans of blatant self-aggrandisement.
PAGE VIEWS: up 160,546 (21%) on January to 915,952, despite having around 11% fewer posts and suffering from two days at the end of the month when our web hosts fell over. (Annoying red-tape delays have now shifted the move to new hosts at wingsoverscotland.com into the start of next week, incidentally.)
That’s the second-biggest month-on-month increase in the site’s history, and considerably more views than November and December 2012 put together.
UNIQUE READERS: up 3,259 (11%) to a new all-time high of 33,055. And although in fairness it’s comparing apples with oranges, that’s more than the most recent daily sales of the Scotsman, which currently stand at 32,463 (and falling). We’re definitely counting that one as a psychological milestone 
VISITS: up 24,967 (19%), breaking the 150,000 barrier for the first time.
Getting through the million won’t be easy. February didn’t have a single day below 20,000 views (a figure we only reached once in the whole of 2012) and we’ll have to redouble our efforts to bring in even more new readers, as well as keeping hold of the ones we’ve got. But readers, you’ve done a heck of a job of motivating us.
Onwards and upwards!
Forgive my ignorance Stu, but what is ‘bounce rate’?
Well done btw.
Bounce rate is how quickly people leave your website to go somewhere else once they’ve arrived. The lower the figure is the better. 1.3% is extremely low.
link to en.wikipedia.org
“According to Inc.com article: “As a rule of thumb, a 50 percent bounce rate is average. If you surpass 60 percent, you should be concerned. If you’re in excess of 80 percent, you’ve got a major problem.””
Well done them.
And off the topic but it is 8 years today that the most blatant example of corruption in Scottish football took place when an ipox season ticket holder gave old rangers a penalty that won them the league by 1 point.
A day when every other club had a chance to stand up to the gfa bigots and ran away like the cowards they are.
Some fans spoke out but not the chairmen. Not the bbc. Not the msm. Nobody supported Hearts.
And in the aftermath Hearts were fined more for speaking out than lord nimmo bigot suggests as a punishment for 12 years of organised cheating.
Why did it take 7 more years before the cover up was exposed? Where were all the seekers of truth when it was an Edinburgh club being stiffed?
Might I suggest you change the site tagline from “soaring above Scottish politics” to “shitting on the Scottish media from a great height”?
Great stuff, Stu. Just goes to show that there is a gap to be filled, and you’re filling it rather brilliantly.
The people have spoken.
Are you listening JP?
Excellent, Rev Stu. Onwards and upwards…
@Doug Daniel
Might I suggest you change the site tagline from “soaring above Scottish politics” to “shitting on the Scottish media from a great height”?
great to know that the site is doing so well Stu. well done all.
These are great stats Rev. What strikes me is that as WoS soars over Scottish politics the YES vote increases. Very much a win, win. Heartiest congratulations, much thanks and well done.
Great news and good stuff, would be gratifying to see some of the additional readers donate and help sustain the great work your website does and therefore collectively help fight the anti-indepence media’s propaganda. Help WOS please.
Well done!
Get it ben ye, Johnston Press!
Heartfelt congratulations.
Prosperity for Scotland
And no union!
Just an aside.
Some folk have been complaining about the The Rangers coverage on here.
Loads of the guys in my workplace are forever talking about it at breaks. They are always swapping links to blogs that have been covering it. None of these guys are what i would call political anoraks. Football seems to be their only interest.
I’ve slipped WOS into the conversation when the Rev has an article on the subject. I don’t know if they read other articles, but it is a way to reach other folk who would otherwise never hear of WOS.
Stuart,
Big pat on the back for what you have achieved. Amazing achievement so far, will only get bigger and better.
Although I have a few issues when you bring football into the equation, your political commentary on what’s happening in our wee country is spot on and I recommend your site to many many others.
Well done again.
P.S My team is getting beat 0-1 at the moment against the mighty East Stirlingshire but its cheering me up; that a YES momentum could be starting from your site through to the general populace.
O/T Rev – and apologies if I’ve missed it – have you considered a blog entry on BBC funding for sport and what the potential is post Indy from a Scottish state broadcaster. The difference in what the BBC pay English and Scottish fitba for example is ridiculous and I have always wondered if there should be political intervention here i.e. If the BBC spend £200 million on premiership, shouldnt they have to give Scottish fitba x%. We also have the quality of programme, format etc which makes our game look 3rd rate. The BBC will argue that the premiership is what customers want to see but why should we just accept that…..more funding should improve quality….as that gets better people become more interested…..the product is then more attractive and then the satellite companies have to pay more. Not rocket science but I have never seen the argument made forcibly or over a pro-longed period by any commentators – sport and political. Many of the so called fitba experts are tied to the BBC…it’s the go to place for Scottish fitba stuff at the weekend after all….so why rock the boat? Would this be different with our own SBC?….or is it all wishful thinking on my part?
I know this is mainly a political blog but the fitba / sport angle will bring non-political types (the vast majority of Scots) to the blog. I was brought here by the Rangers stuff and believe it also has it’s place. keep up the good work!
Is the Scotsbum not what people wipe their arses with when they run out of toilet paper
Absolutely stunning figures. What would help is if some of the newer readers would consider giving a small donation to continue the work done by this excellent site.
Paypal, Google checkout and Direct Bank transfer options:
link to wingsland.podgamer.com
Wingsland Appeal – paypal
link to indiegogo.com
Either way, every pound helps and donating feels good. Please do it.
@Doug Daniel
Might I suggest you change the site tagline from “soaring above Scottish politics” to “shitting on the Scottish media from a great height”?
When the golden eagle soars and shits on the scottish media then I hope it has diarrhoea …
33000 unique visitors and around 32000 page view average per day in February. That implies your readers sure are loyal, almost visiting every day! And February is a short month too! If that keeps up then March will break the million mark! Once you get a reader you sure do keep ’em. Another thing that impressive is the 17% new visitor rate.
According to wikipedia The Scotsman websites gets around 100000 daily average hits, so you’re about a third of the way there already! If you maintain your ‘stickiness’ then the priority becomes getting those new visitors. Why not set yourself the goal of reaching 100000 daily page views in time for the Independence referendum in 2014? Spread the word people!
Ian: The Scotsman website gets around 100,000 visitors a day – the number of page views will be a fair bit higher. (Though those figures are from before their recent Google troubles, so they may be significantly lower now.)
We’re doing well if we get a tenth as many people as that on any single day, but given that the Scotsman has VASTLY more content than us (those figures include their jobs and property pages as well as the output of dozens of reporters) we’re still doing amazingly well, especially considering we’ve only been going for 15 months and they’ve had a website for 15 years.
I’m pretty sure diarrhoea is very dangerous to the health of golden eagles. Query: can eagles drink Lucozade to replenish their lost fluids and glucose?
ScottyC1314 – We’ve touched on the subject here:
link to wingsland.podgamer.com
Well done Stu! Onwards and upwards.
@Juteman – Snap! I e-mailed my brother a link to Nimmo-Smith for Dummies, as I knew it would interest him.
As a long time lurker and non-contributor (apart from financially) keep up the good work Rev Stu. WoS is a great website. Independence will come.
A lucozade drinking golden eagle with diarrhoea shitting on the biased Scottish MSM, courtesy of WoS.
Never before has an energy drink driven raptor joabee joke been so politically rewarding
Golden eagles and Wings over Scotland – I salute you.
Excellent news,just as a small way of increasing your readership,YesAberdeen have Facebook business cards,when we do our Saturday info point i write Wings over Scotland and Newsnet Scotland on the back and ask people to visit them,i`m encouraged that some of your new readers may have clicked as a result of this,gives me more hope for the future.
Hi Rev.
Been a bit poorly recently and just catching up on all “THE NEWS” here at Wings. Well done for all your hard work.
*Donated*
Visit WOS every day, excellent articles, keep up the good work Rev
Great news and thanks for quality journalism. You read all those poor newspaper articles so I don’t have to pay them or credit them in any way. I’d say that is truly ‘taking one for the team’
This is excellent news Rev, and a source of pride to all who contribute whether by word or donation. I encourage all newbies to keep coming back, feel free to chip in to the debate, and to support this site. We dont all agree on everything, and neither should we, but we’re all agreed that Scotland can be better, and will be with a Yes vote.
Fully endorse other posters comments well done indeed Rev Stu and i think the million mark will be smashed this month, due to in no small measure by the Scottish Government who will be introducing a Referendum Bill (this month) into the Scottish Parliament.
Truly awesome numbers and well deserved. Now that Wings Over Scotland is as much part of daily life to many of us as the breakfast cuppa, can I kindly suggest to all other readers, comrades, friends, brothers and sisters, activists and supporters … to get the fecking finger out and fire more money into this enterprise ! The mendacious unionist media spin will go up several gears over the next 18+ months, so if we want to see WOS holding these liars to account several times a day (and I don’t know how he does it…) then donate as much as you can as soon as you can.
I’m NOT on a percentage BTW !
I have just seen this after being up in Perth for the day so I would just like to add my congratulations to the Rev and everybody who contributes to this site . When we win in 2014 it will be down to the Rev and sites like newsnet destroying all the lies put out by NO Scotland assisted by their friends in the m.s.m .
I know that Rev Stu. I made the point that your unique visitors (~33000) and your pageview numbers per day (~32000) are very close, not The Scotsmans. Hence a good target to aim for would be 100000 pageview numbers, whether you maintain your stickiness to get 100000 uniques is another question. I would imagine that 100000 uniques would hopefully be a later target!! First things first..
Completely agree with your second point.
With those number of page views you seriously need to look at adding Google Ads to the front page. I hear they still have an opening for an honest Scottish site
Fantastic stats Rev
Outstanding. Thank you for all your hard work Stu.
Great stats, have donated and will do so again as soon as I can afford it. Great site, well done!