Hot Summer on MPW

This summer saw the most traffic directed to this blog in its history. Here’s some data on how many site visits came in and where they came from.

August is normally the worst month for political blog traffic, but August 2009 was the best month in MPW’s history. According to Sitemeter, we had 24,451 site visits last month, a huge gain over August 2007 (1,570) and August 2008 (5,438). Our page views (54,027) led all 38 blogs in our dataset in August.


The following user data from Statcounter applies to the 100,000 page views we received from May 30 through August 23.

Page View Distribution by County and State

Bear in mind that many people log in through their employers’ computers and that will affect this distribution. Many of the District of Columbia and Virginia views are probably coming from Marylanders who work in those places. Also, some employers with offices in this area may be branch offices of companies whose Internet service is provided in other states.

Montgomery County: 36.3%
Baltimore City: 7.2%
Anne Arundel County: 6.9%
Prince George’s County: 5.2%
Baltimore County: 3.8%
Howard County: 3.0%
Other Maryland: 4.3%
District of Columbia: 13.1%
Virginia: 5.8%
Other United States: 12.9%
International: 1.7%

Top Localities by Page Views

1. District of Columbia: 13.1%
2. Silver Spring: 12.4%
3. Rockville: 8.4%
4. Baltimore: 7.2%
5. Gaithersburg: 4.3%
6. Bethesda: 3.2%
7. Annapolis: 3.0%
8. Olney: 1.8%
9. Ellicott City: 1.6%
10. Arlington, VA: 1.6%
11. Germantown: 1.5%
12. Laurel: 1.4%
13. Chevy Chase: 1.3%
14. Alexandria, VA: 1.3%
15. Potomac: 1.1%
16. Pasadena: 1.0%
17. Columbia: 0.9%
18. Kensington: 0.8%
19. Takoma Park: 0.8%
20. Hyattsville: 0.7%

Top Internet Service Providers of Users by Page Views

1. Individuals with Verizon Accounts: 24.8%
2. Individuals with Comcast Accounts: 20.2%
3. Montgomery County Government: 6.1%
4. State of Maryland: 4.8%
5. Individuals with RCN Accounts: 2.9%
6. Individuals with Comcast Business Accounts: 2.8%
7. Individuals with AOL Accounts: 1.2%
8. Individuals with Research in Motion Accounts: 0.9%
9. The Washington Post: 0.7%
10. Individuals with Road Runner Accounts: 0.7%
11. Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission: 0.6%
12. Individuals with Verizon Wireless Accounts: 0.6%

What were people most interested in? We’ll have that and more tomorrow.