• by Ken Liebeskind , January 25, 2002

New York Times Digital reported yesterday that page views at its two websites increased during the last two months of last year.

Page views at NYTimes.com rose 52.3% in November and 49.5% in December compared with the same months in 2000. There were 11.07 million unique visitors in November and 9.69 million in December.

Page views at Boston.com rose 23.8 percent for November and 15.7 percent for December with 1.65 million unique visitors in November and 1.77 million in December.

Scott Meyer, general manager of NYTimes.com, attributes the rise to a combination of things, the biggest being the the opt-in email is sent to three million users. The customizable email, in which users choose what kind of headlines and content they get, draws them to the site. The site was also redesigned to make it easier to navigate, he says.

After Sept. 11, visits to new sites skyrocketed. "The whole news category shot up dramatically and we held onto our gains," Meyer says. While November and December's numbers were lower than October's, they were higher than any month previous to September. Numbers are always lower in December during the holidays, Meyer says, but they remained high for the site.

Time spent online at the sites also increased. Visitors spent 40 minutes at NYTimes.com in December, up from 31.7 in November. They spent 19.7 at Boston.com in December, up from 16.4 in November.