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More readers and more page impressions; How August was interest.co.nz's strongest traffic month ever

More readers and more page impressions; How August was interest.co.nz's strongest traffic month ever

August was a big month for interest.co.nz. In fact it was our biggest month ever.

It was also a big month for you, our readers. During August interest.co.nz had almost 368,000 unique readers, with more than two million page impressions recorded. Both figures are the highest monthly figures this website has ever experienced.

Key traffic drivers during the month were the Reserve Bank's surprise 50 basis points Official Cash Rate cut, subsequent interest rate moves by banks, and uncertainty and turbulence in global financial markets.

As demonstrated by the chart below, during August we were joined by many new readers. And to you, welcome!

And we delivered many more pages of content, as demonstrated by the chart below.

Interest.co.nz was founded by David Chaston in 1999. In 2008 news was added to the data comparison services provided on the site. Our small team provides information, news, explainers, analysis and opinion on interest rates and economic data. We closely follow key drivers of the New Zealand economy, such as housing and the rural sector, and provide daily updates on key global economic and financial issues.

We maintain close scrutiny of New Zealand banks and other financial service providers, providing detailed analysis on key issues such as the bank capital debate. Additionally we cover politics, striving to focus more on policy than personality. We're also grateful to our regular outside contributors who add so much to the interest.co.nz website.

Some readers choose to share their views. We welcome this and on any day we get about 250 comments from about 100 or so readers. We do ask, however, that comments meet basic standards. These are detailed here.

Even those readers who don't comment, read intensively. Site-wide the average time a reader spends engaged is three minutes and twenty seconds. But for articles it is much longer, well exceeding four minutes on average. And here is the interesting thing, something we weren't expecting. Those reading our content on mobile devices spend about 10% longer engaged.

Thank you for your support.

We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.

Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.

38 Comments

Well deserved interest.co.nz

You're a fantastic resource and one of the bright lights among NZ media.

The increased traffic is also a good sign of more people becoming informed instead of the relying on the mainstream media, which is not necessarily produced in the interests of objectivty, but more dictated by the interests of advertisers.

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Partly the result of your quality and partly the result of the weakness (absence of quality) of other media sources.

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Well done you have a great site. If i had some feedback if you wanted to boost user comments and participation make the time it takes to get registered for an account less. One way to do this would be to link it to facebook logins.

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I'm not certain that lowering the bar to more commenters is strictly necessary, the quality and range of comments we see is already really good. It is only the occasional deep-nested chain of repetitive disagreement replies that limits the value there.

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You're welcome.

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Congrats! It's well deserved.

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Congrats

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Yes well done. I think harsh reality of the craziness of the global markets has finally set in, so people are keener to do their homework before taking an investment risk. Keep up the good reporting.

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thats certainly why I ended up here on the site

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I was in the process of hunting for my first home a couple of years ago, landed on Property Talk for a bit while I did my research. Followed a link one day to Interest.co and got a few laughs out of the comments section. Lurked for a few months before I officially registered.

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The fact that there is a lot of news that people are interested in right now helps. I link the occasional article on social media, so that's my small contribution to assist you.

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Great website, keep it up.

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Well done DC and the whole team, you all provide top articles

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Congrats, Interest is a fantastic source of information and debate.

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.. I reckon there's an inverse relationship between business confidence and blogging at interest.co nz

Clearly there's a deep discontent with the current coalition government , and this is reflected in many of us coming here to have a right old whinge about it all . .

If my theory is validated by scientific study David , will you vote Labour next election to keep the business flourishing , or will you hold onto your principled stand and continue a lifetime of voting for the McGillicuddy Serious Party ?

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Does the McGillicuddy Serious Party still exist?!

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... sadly , no .... but I can imagine David going into the voting box with a handful of thick crayons and scrawling " McGillicuddy " across the page , before spitting on the floor , and storming out ...

He just seems the type . . . ( tee heee haaaaaa )

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Independent quality journalism deserves to be supported.

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A quick question.
Does your research confirm - people with smart phones are slower at reading?

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Well done !

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This is a true and valuable means to vent, exchange, criticise, lampoon and even agree. Highly entertaining, at times amusing too, and I will always appreciate all I have been able to learn resultantly.

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Great Work,

I've learnt a lot from interest.co.nz AND really appreciate the deposit rates comparisons.

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I come here as a first port of call for any news in the morning. I've begun an investing journey over the last 2 years and I find the articles & insights on here to be very helpful. Sounds like many other people are too.

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Keep producing good content and we'll keep coming, it's as simple as that.

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Interest.co.nz for the real news, then flick through the other 'news' agencies to see which direction they wish to stear the masses.
About to sell a house and after that I'll be sending some coin your way.
Glad to see that people are switching on to what's going on.

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Good on you folks at interest.co.nz :)

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i do like interest.co.nz however I suspect the pick up in visits could be driven by the imposition of the paywall at the NBR and Herald.

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Andy, we assume we have picked up some traffic since the Herald's paywall was introduced. But the NBR one has been in place for years now so that's unlikely to be a factor.

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Congratulations! Informed, incredulous, bragging, entertaining, cynical, alert, doubtful, enraged, cheeky, chastened, brooding, testing - your platform is one of the arteries of our democracy.

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Congrats. It is always interesting and intriguing to check out interst.co.nz. Enjoy immensely the discussions.
Of course, in August we had more fodder to feed our thoughts and share.
Well done, David and team for pulling together a diverse group of readers who add jest, variety, deep thought and make a visit to this place always enlightening, entertaining and fun.
Best wishes for more successes and readers.

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Great - I'll be getting a payrise. PDK is going to be hosed.

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You are doing great work and clearly all really passionate about accurate reporting and providing a depth of insight to readers. Hopefully everyone in your office gets to share in the rewards of your success!

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I’ve donated small amounts a couple of times. I appreciate your work and I hope plenty of other fellow readers do too. Hint: it’s that little black bar mentioning ‘support’ at the top of the home page.

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I wonder how many have are here from Nzherald -which has really gone downhill in recent times

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One of the best sites I've come across, my only disappointment is that I was away for most of August and hoped I'd be missed, at least just a little - damn!

One of the great strengths of this site is the comments stream, and many of the commenters provide some depth through their own analysis and responses to the articles. PDK, Nymad, Zac Smith, Boatman, Andy B, Gummy to name just a few who I always look for. These have provided to my education as well as helped keep me somewhat humble (just a little) when expressing an opinion or seeking an answer. There is the risk though that occasionally it gets a little repetitive.

Constructive criticism; in the early days of the re-format of the site a number asked the question about making the comments more visible, and this has clearly been not easy, because it hasn't been done. Perhaps a heading in the menu bar to the comments stream would work?

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In the absence of a comments stream, something simpler such a red "New Comments" next to each article heading in the news homepage, and a red "New" next to each new comment in the article itself would be a great addition. I find i'm having to remember what the previous comments count was on an article to ascertain whether new comments have been made.

Maybe even emails notifications of new replies to a user's comment will help keep the conversation going.

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Even on holiday in the UK, I try to keep up with events in NZ through this channel. Keep up the good work.

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A suggestion: colour the moniker of those who actually Contribute.....could be amusing.

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