Times Traffic Drops Off a Cliff After Paywall Launch

Want to see what the launch of a paywall does to a news site’s traffic? Take a look at this graph from Hitwise.

While other sites have held steady, the Times’ market share has dropped from 4.37% during the week ending May 22nd to 2.67% last week. Its average session time has also fallen from an average of five and half to three minutes. However, as Hitwise’s Robin Goad notes: “That figure is actually higher than many people would have expected, given that a lots of visitors will be spending very little time there if they are choosing not to register.”

The Times doesn’t strictly have a proper ‘pay’wall yet, it’s simply asking users to register to view content for the time being. When users have to pay, we can probably expect an even greater drop.

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Of course, the Times shouldn’t be too worried by the drop. Introduction of a paywall was always bound to reduce the site’s audience. The fact that the Times gets a regular income from that smaller audience is much more important to publisher News International.