T-Squared: The 2011 Stats

So much for the terrible twos.

I'm happy to report that 2011 — our second full year in operation — was pretty terrific in terms of traffic to our site. In every measurable category we significantly improved over 2010 by a magnitude that surprised and pleased us. As I've said before, this thing is working. With energy and enthusiasm, ambition and innovation, we're covering the waterfront, flooding the zone and assorted other journalistic cliches. And consumers of news and data are responding.

Here are the 2011 stats vs. those of 2010:

Page views: 40,459,717, or an average of more than 3.371 million per month. 2010's number was 23,011,098, or an average of  just over 1.917 million per month. That's an increase of nearly 76 percent.

Total visits: 9,527,407, vs. 3,970,635 in 2010 — an increase of 140 percent.

Unique visitors: 5,161,240 in 2011, vs. 2,209,958 in 2010 — an increase of more than 133 percent. Our monthly average in '11 was more than 430,000; in '10 it was more than 184,000. In the second half of '10, we averaged nearly 254,000 per month; in the second half of '11, it was just over 565,000 per month.

Average number of page views per visit: 4.25 — lower than last year's 5.8, but it means our traffic is pointing more to journalism than data, which is fine with us.

Percentage of traffic from Texas: 68.5 percent, vs. 70.25 percent in 2010. Slowly but surely, we're attracting out-of-state readers who look to us as their go-to source for news about Texas politics and policy.

Percentage of traffic from Austin: 20.46 percent in 2011, vs. 23 percent in 2010. Trending in the right direction! Time to call an old priest and a young priest: We can finally exorcise the devilish nobody-outside-of-Austin-cares meme.

Top 10 traffic-generating cities in Texas: Austin, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, College Station, Fort Worth, Lubbock, El Paso, Arlington, Plano. If we look at our top traffic-generating cities, period, New York was number 5 and Washington, D.C., was number 9. (Hmm, I wonder if Gov. Perry has something to do with that.)

Top 5 traffic-generating countries: U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, India.

For the first (but not last) time this year, thanks to all of you for your robust support.