Traffic review of the year
Posted by Huw,
This year has been an extraordinary one and recent events have had a massive impact on all aspects of our lives, including our LEGO hobby.
The LEGO Company has found it hard to keep items in stock due to unprecedented demand and production disruption, and we've been unable to attend LEGO events and meet up with our LEGO friends.
One positive effect it's had is that Brickset, in common with other LEGO fan websites, has seen vastly increased levels of traffic over the year.
The headlines are:
- Page views up by 18%, visits up by 17%, visitors up by 22% to a record high of 8.2 million
- Social media followers up by around 20% to 137,000
- 32,000 new members joined in 2020, more than in any other year.
- 85,030 members logged in during 2020
- 4,787 members posted 58,050 comments on our home page articles
- 555 members contributed 1959 user reviews
Website traffic
Here's how this year compares with the previous six:
| 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Page views | 95,294,684 | 81,046,193 | 84,910,676 | 92,611,909 | 101,385,839 | 94,879,418 | 85,658,634 |
| Visits | 26,287,592 | 22,775,321 | 23,334,774 | 25,174,751 | 26,414,965 | 24,309,642 | 20,761,051 |
| Visitors | 8,287,450 | 6,781,522 | 6,446,014 | 7,268,174 | 7,431,089 | 7,242,884 | 6,624,114 |
Following three years of decline after 'peak LEGO' in 2016, more people than ever have visited Brickset this year, and have viewed almost as many pages as in that year.
2017, incidentally, was when we had to ramp up advertising to non-members following a sharp decline in affiliate revenue as a result of the major players changing their payout structure, so that will be partly responsible for the subsequent decline in page views.
95 million page views over the year equates to an average of 260,000 pages a day, and 3 pages per second.
Traffic compared to last year
January and February stated off normally, with a slight decline in numbers after the seasonal peak, but bolstered by news from toy fairs. Then in March, the pandemic hit and much of Europe and the USA was in lockdown. As a result, traffic increased dramatically and both page views and visitor numbers were up about 40% during April and May compared to last year.
Traffic levels have exceeded those of last year by around 10% every month since.
Member numbers
Around 32,000 people joined the site this year, more than any other. However, the total number of user accounts in the database is about the same as this time last year, because we purged a large number of unused ones in the summer.
This graph shows how many people joined each year since we started recording join dates in 2010.
The effect of the pandemic and lockdown is clearly evident in this graph that shows how many people joined each month over the last five years.
Social media
Our social media followers have increased again this year: Facebook likes 38,932 (2019: 34,000), Twitter 37,386 (2019: 32,700) and Instagram 60,783 (2019:47,400), so once again the picture-sharing platform achieved the highest growth.
Conclusions
I am of course happy that 2020 was a record-breaking year, as I'm sure it was for many online businesses, but I really hope that global conditions allow for a return to normal traffic levels in 2021. The next few months are going to be particularly challenging, but with the end of the pandemic now in sight, hopefully we can all soon get back to enjoying non-LEGO pursuits, as well as our beloved brick.
Unfortunately those of us in the UK have the double-whammy of Covid restrictions and Brexit to contend with in the new year. In the short- to medium-term, Brexit will cause untold damage to our economy, disrupt the supply chain of essential goods, push up prices, and make travelling to Europe difficult. Given that discussions are still ongoing -- with less than two weeks to go before the end of the year -- we still don't know exactly what effect it will have.
However, I suspect we can look forward to delays to LEGO stock arriving in the shops, delays to our LEGO.com orders arriving from the European warehouses, higher prices, difficulties for LEGO when sending us review sets from Denmark, and us likely to have to pay import duties on them. Time will tell exactly how much of a disaster for us, and the country, it turns out to be.
Anyway, thank you all for visiting and making the site the success it is. I hope we can continue to meet your LEGO-information needs and if you have any suggestions as to what you'd like us to do differently, we are always open to hearing them, either in the comments below or via our suggestions page.
Happy Holidays to you all, and stay safe!
Thanks to Dan Ko at dhsign.eu for the lead graphic.
174 likes
34 comments on this article
Wow that lead graphic...
Pure visual poetry
Thanks for all the work you do, Huw! I'm thankful every day for this amazing site!
Thank you Huw :-) Happy Holidays to you as well!
Thankfully people in Scotland voted overwhelmingly against Brexit so we won’t be affected. Hmm...what’s that you’re saying? Nnnooooo!
Thank you Huw. Your work has made a difference to Lego fans around the world
Great to see that Brickset is doing stronger than ever, although the pandemic has been beyond awful it has been somewhat a benefit for this set, every low has its high I guess XD.
I've found myself on Brickset and other communities online a lot in the last year, for the same reason as everyone else cause of lockdowns etc. I've also been going through my Brickset collection and making sure I have all the sets in my virtual log that I have in my LEGO room.
Lets hope 2021 is better.
Thanks Huw for your outstanding efforts! Although I have to mention that for me the absolute overwhelming load of adds makes navigating the site a real struggle sometimes. For me, it really is a reason to visit brickset much less then I used to do.
@henrivanraalte said:
"Thanks Huw for your outstanding efforts! Although I have to mention that for me the absolute overwhelming load of adds makes navigating the site a real struggle sometimes. For me, it really is a reason to visit brickset much less then I used to do. "
As you must have noticed now, since you're logged in, you don't see any ads when logged in ;)
Thanks, Huw, I think the quality of the content here is higher than things like the Lego subreddit, so I'm not surprised that views are up.
It's a great website and catalog / database for everyone who likes Lego. Keep up the good work and every visit is very deserved!
Thanks for the awesome site @Huw!
The "What can Brickset do for you?" offer and the type of articles (building techniques, fan articles) after that was a real savior in these days.
Thank you so much!
Thank you for your work. From Russia with love.
Huw and brothers and sisters-in-arms, congrats and a big thank you for all the efforts and time that went into the site! I don't remember exactly when I joined but it was soon after the internet hit my private environment on an Apple powerbook, could it be 98 or so? Ever since, brickset for me was a once-a-day visit at least! What a success story!
I'm happy to count myself among the 555 reviewers here, though I've only done a few this year.
I got seriously into Lego at the turn of the new year at the age of 46. Having found Brickset, it’s the one site I go to for excellent reviews, great databases and news. Keep up the great work Huw and the rest of the team and stay safe.
@Huw as per your concluding Brexit paragraphs, now you Poms know what its like when your country is completely and utterly reliant on other countries..... (the worst offender of this is of course my own not very Great Southern Land)
Glad to see that the site got some more traffic, I hope people appreciated the amount of work yourself and the other staff go to with reviews, news and just interesting articles.
As everyone else mentioned above, a big thanks to Huw (and the rest of your review team: Cap Rex and Megan - those are the two that I can remember) for the excellent site you put together - much appreciated. Also a very happy (and safe) holiday season for all fellow Lego brick lovers!
I have one suggestion concerning 'parts' review. I am not quite sure if it's even doable for someone external to Lego. Would it be possible to add something in the part page stating that a part is still in production (i.e. still available from Lego). We can see that a part was made a given year but we cannot tell if it is still in production. I have asked Lego numerous time to offer a search of parts by colour but they don't seem to want to add that research facility (available on pick a brick but not anywhere else). On your site it is easy to do but we don't know if the parts are still available. For example, I would like to be able to do a search of all the 'sand green' pieces currently available to buy from Lego.com at this very moment. I suppose I could create a bot that would surf the Lego site for 25000 different pieces, see in what colours they are available and tabulate them on a master list but I am trying to avoid doing this by brute force.
Concerning the lead graphic:
Have you noticed? For sure, you have all noticed that the three coloured cars represent the three 1x1 plates of the Brickset logo but combined with all the other grey cars, it forms a heart! Very nicely done.
^ Yes, it's great isn't it. Dan has kindly offered to produce graphics for us so expect to see more of his work in the future.
@HOBBES said:
"For example, I would like to be able to do a search of all the 'sand green' pieces currently available to buy from Lego.com at this very moment. I suppose I could create a bot that would surf the Lego site for 25000 different pieces, see in what colours they are available and tabulate them on a master list but I am trying to avoid doing this by brute force.""
You should really check out the browser addon Brickhunter, it does exactly what you are looking for (I think) and is in my eyes a godsend for part lovers.
@Huw:
You can absolutely expect supply issues with LEGO sets in the near future. I've already seen a couple articles mentioning that the existing supply in the UK is drying up as essential goods are being prioritized for import over luxury items. Ultimately, it's more important to be able to feed people than have an ample supply of toys available, so January 1st is probably going to be a bit rough for those who really want to buy the first 2021 sets on launch day.
Business is boomin'!
Great article, and great news. Thanks for all you do. I think I feel particularly grateful for the extra effort you put forth in the spring to make the enforced time at home more fun (articles about people's storage, people's LEGO lives, etc.) Those were great features and really made BrickSet into an important part of my life this year. So again, thanks.
Thank you all for your kind comments.
Does DPD ship Lego by road or air from Europe to the UK?
Thanks for all the interesting Brickset info, Huw. Dan Ko's graphic is very eye catching, too! It's good to hear that you and your team have had such a successful year. You certainly made a positive impact for many of us this last spring. Thank you for that and for all you do to keep us informed and entertained. Enjoy your holidays with your family!
I’d like to echo the appreciation to Huw and the whole Brickset team for a continually amazing site. I’ll also add to the praise for Dan Ko’s lead graphic. Well done.
Yes, 2020 has been a crazy, difficult year. But if I’m honest, there were some definite positives too. I hope Brickset remains strong and growing, while this pandemic doesn’t.
I would just like to say that, as a Lego Store employee, Brickset is an invaluable asset. I probably refer to it more than Lego's own website! Keep up the good work!
As a student studying transportation engineering, I might have gotten a bit over excited when I first saw the headline.
Thank you for work on this site, it is very helpful.
Since you guys don't have a subscription or Patreon I try to use Amazon affiliate links when I can to ensure you guys get some money.
Brickset provides a valuable service to Lego fans and I wish you continued success.
Huwbot on Ideas could benefit a bit from this traffic.
Perhaps a bit more visual presence in articles like this might help.
I know I’ve been on here a lot more since the pandemic began, I got nowhere else to go. But I am wondering, what happened in 2016? I understand the more ads, but assuming most people login that really shouldn’t be an issue. As for those without logins, they wouldn’t know about the ads when brickset shows up at the top of their Google search. The only thing I can think of is everyone blew all their money on World Series tickets and could no longer afford Lego. Obviously Lego fans are pretty smart so I’m not surprised we’re all Cubs fans.
As for your brexit issue, couldn’t you just build a Lego bridge from England to Denmark? If everyone in England bought a colosseum I would think you’d have enough bricks to complete the bridge.