>Navigational search term volume is not a perfect proxy for traffic — in particular, we are discounting the people that end up visiting the site through links to articles they find online.
I mean, you’re also discounting app traffic, which would presumably be substantial for a subscription-based news app. Right?
But it wouldn’t be terribly surprising if a non news feature drove a lot of traffic (and especially subscribers); the games are just the comics and classifieds of today.
I think the interesting thing is that until about 30 months ago, they weren't! The New York Times went through a couple decades online with no real games traffic. The pandemic and wordle changed that. Radically in ways I think people have not comprehended.
>Navigational search term volume is not a perfect proxy for traffic — in particular, we are discounting the people that end up visiting the site through links to articles they find online.
I mean, you’re also discounting app traffic, which would presumably be substantial for a subscription-based news app. Right?
But it wouldn’t be terribly surprising if a non news feature drove a lot of traffic (and especially subscribers); the games are just the comics and classifieds of today.
I think the interesting thing is that until about 30 months ago, they weren't! The New York Times went through a couple decades online with no real games traffic. The pandemic and wordle changed that. Radically in ways I think people have not comprehended.
That said, I did add your caveat to the last paragraph. Thank you!
So it's like the newspaper you got for the color comic supplement because the kids liked it.
But does this worry us? As means of funding journalism, this one seems pretty benign.