Celebrating 5 Years at CaryCitizen
Cary, NC — Today, July 24, 2014 is the 5th anniversary of CaryCitizen. Thanks to all our readers, contributors and advertisers who have made it all possible.
Celebrating 5 Years, Statistically Speaking
We published our first story on July 24, 2009. Here’s a few cumulative stats over the first 5 years:
- 3,586 – Published stories
- 834,726 – Individual users
- 1,938,165 – Page views
CaryCitizen also gets about 20,000 reads per month via email.
Stats from Google Analytics.
Comments
Since the beginning, we’ve had a strong, pro-community comments policy: Be polite, be real.
Right away, CaryCitizen readers understood that we were rebelling against the free-for-all comments policy on newspaper websites at the time. Now, most newspapers have adopted our policy.
- 4,554 published comments
- 556,156 – Spam comments blocked
Stats from WordPress.
Getting Social
On our 5th anniversary, our Facebook audience is approaching 3,500 fans. According to Facebook Insights, we had 1,072,824 impressions in the first 6 months of 2014.
On Twitter, CaryCitizen is approaching 2,000 followers. In the first 6 months of this year, our Twitter stream has had 1,952,820 impressions.
Contributors
Since 2009, we’ve had many, many contributors who added their insights and their voices to CaryCitizen. Here is just a partial list.
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- Leslie Huffman
- Matt Young
- Brenda Larson
- Pete D’Arruda
- Brooke Meyer
- Keith Ramsey
- Tom Steadman
- Josh Steadman
- Kathleen McDonald
- Mark Ratcliff
- Nancy Caggia
- Jamie Buning
- Austin Cooper
- Don Frantz
- Bob Fennel
- Emily N. Roberts, MA, LPC
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- Brent Miller
- Brennin Cummings
- Jillian Goodtree
- Tom Murry
- Andrew Johnson
- Suzie Wolf
- Michele Little
- Tom Mousseau
- Cindy Sinkez
- Peggy Van Scoyoc
- Laura McGoogan
- Nick Verna
- Jim McGrody
- Cris Cohen
- Lisa Englert
- Kristen Cheung
- Brian Speice
- Robert Geiger
- Lori Bush
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- Randy Byrd
- Andrew Johnson
- Juan Santiago
- Mike Baranski
- Gina Wilcox
- Mike Curran
- Karl Fisher
- Chris Adamczyk
- Mary Beth Phillips
- Rachel Kincaid
- Liza Weidle
- Travis Toth
- Paul Tuorto
- Kaynan Goldberg
- Jamie Berger
- Doc Thorne
- Dr Mark Galland
- David Lindquist
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Thank you contributors!
Advertisers
Thanks also to our family of more than 100 advertisers and sponsors. It wouldn’t be possible without their support.
Since the beginning, we’ve run our own ad server. All the ads that appear on CaryCitizen come through our hands – no Google or Yahoo ads. Here’s some ad stats for the first five years:
- 5,532,723 – Ad impressions served
- .54% – Click through rate (CTR) on CaryCitizen
The average CTR for banners on the web is .10%.
Stats from Open X and HubSpot.
Looking Ahead
Looking ahead, we’ll continue doing what works – serving up community news and connecting people.
Thanks to all our friends for 5 great years!
– Lindsey & Hal
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Hal Goodtree & Lindsey Chester publish CaryCitizen. Photo by Andrea Parrish – Geyer.
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CaryCitizen is sponsored in part by Thai Spices & Sushi, located in Preston Corners.
Thanks everyone! Couldn’t done it without you.
Congratulations :) You have done a great job and serve as a welcome alternative to the increasingly lame Cary News.
CONGRATULATIONS! Lindsey and Hal… your addition to our community has made opening my morning email a bit more sunnier and brighter. A belated thank you for all you’ve done and my best wishes for your next five.
Contributing to Cary Citizen got me connected to the community I lived in but didn’t know. CC is a catalyst for the alchemy that transforms geography into home. Plus I have a photograph of Ralph Ashworth doing Zumba in the intersection of Chatham and Academy Streets (legally).
Congratulations! & Thanks for providing our Local Coverage! =)
Congratulations CaryCitizen! Has it been 5 years already? I can’t remember what it was like without CaryCitizen, our true local news source and community hub.
We are fortunate to have the Cary Citizen here in our community sharing all the great things that make Morrisville and Cary such great places to live.
Congratulations to Cary Citizen! Five years of great news and a unique service for Cary. Your are a refreshing change from all other media sites. Our community has grown because of your contributions. Thank you and have a great celebration! Your friends at Hopewell Academy
Congratulations! Your success is well earned. I read every post that comes to my email, and just tweeted your Celebrating Five Years message. I want more to know about CaryCitizen.
Thanks for 5 great years! I’m happy to know Cary Citizen is in such good hands and that I can count on it for news from my community!