Website traffic review of the year
Posted by Huw,
Every year before Christmas I like to delve into Google Analytics and share the figures with you.
2022 has been another record-breaking year for Brickset with more people than ever visiting the site. Our database continues to be an invaluable resource for millions, and our reviews and editorial content has attracted thousands of new readers. Additionally, LEGO continues to draw in new customers with a wide range of products, and the company's steady success has no doubt had a knock-on effect on us.
The headlines are:
- Number of visitors up by 12% to a record high of 9.6 million, page views up 1% to 93 million
- Social media followers up by around 8% to 165,500
- 33,306 new members joined in 2022 (2021: 30,700)
- 96,962 members logged in during 2022 (2021: 88,900)
- 4,311 members posted 63,358 comments on our home page articles (2021: 4,700/68,000)
- 363 members contributed 1,124 user reviews (2021: 403/1,290)
Website traffic
Here's how this year compares with the previous six:
| 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Page views | 93,042,935 | 92,767,612 | 95,294,684 | 81,046,193 | 84,910,676 | 92,611,909 | 101,385,839 |
| Visits | 26,633,879 | 26,247,296 | 26,156,168 | 22,775,321 | 23,334,774 | 25,174,751 | 26,414,965 |
| Visitors | 9,686,325 | 8,659,361 | 8,287,450 | 6,781,522 | 6,446,014 | 7,268,174 | 7,431,089 |
93 million page views over the year equates to an average of abut 7.7 million a month, 250,000 pages a day, and 2.9 pages per second.
This year we had a server outage for almost three days during March which will have had a knock-on effect on page views but nevertheless there's been a 1% increase, and the number of visits is much the same as last year. However, more people than ever are viewing the site and that is the most important metric.
As you can see in the graph below we experienced an increase in traffic during the pandemic, and it's encouraging to see that it has not dropped now that it is over. It would appear that people who discovered Brickset during that period continue to use the site.
The number of page views has not reached 2016 levels and that is likely to be because that was before we started showing adverts to non-logged-in casual users.
This year's traffic
Traffic levels fluctuate with the seasons, as you'd expect for a site about an indoor hobby but this year we did not see as much of a dip during the Northern Hemisphere summer as we usually do.
It's interesting to go back and work out what caused spikes in traffic. This year they all corresponded with new product reveals:
- 30th January: March sets revealed
- 2nd May: summer sets revealed
- 18th June: LEGO Con and multiple set reveals
- 2nd December: 2023 sets revealed
Traffic compared to last year
Page views have been comparable with 2021 throughout the year although the summer trough was not as deep as usual.
Page views:
Visitors:
We've seen a huge increase in the number of visitors since June, which is very encouraging.
Member numbers
Around 33,300 people joined the site this year, which is 10% more than in 2021 and more than any other year.
Of those that joined last year, 13,000 continued to use the site this year, and overall about 96,000 members logged in during the year.
Social media
Our social media followers have increased again this year: Facebook up 8% to 44,500 (2021: 41,000), Twitter up 11% to 48,900 (2021: 42,000) and Instagram up 4% to 72,100 (2021: 69,000).
Our Facebook Brickset members group now has 16,800 members.
Compared to other LEGO sites
Unfortunately there is now no easy way to compare our traffic with other LEGO sites because Alexa rankings are no longer available.
Overall, then, it's been another good year for Brickset, with the numbers all going in the right direction.
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!
145 likes
33 comments on this article
Great resource you have created Huw, many thanks.
All the best for the New Year.
Thanks for another year full of useful and original articles. Keep up the good work, all of you!
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy Festivus BS team, members, and lay-about looky-loos!
Happy to help make this site fun and sustainable. Don't kid yourself. This site has also had a huge part in making Lego's success possible. If I'm any indication, that is.
I’m curious how much members is there in total ?
@Arth2905 said:
"I’m curious how much members is there in total ?"
You can find a up-to-date answer for this in the footer. It currently displays “ There are now 283,798 members”.
@Mainstream said:
" @Arth2905 said:
"I’m curious how much members is there in total ?"
You can find a up-to-date answer for this in the footer. It currently displays “ There are now 283,798 members”."
Yes that's correct but given 'only' 96,000 logged in this year there are a lot of dormant accounts.
I love this site. I visit it daily, if not several times a day at certain times of the year. All the best to the Brickset team.
Happy New Year!!
Happy Building ,and Merry Christmas to Brickset and All who sail in Her!
This is a great webpage that I visit everyday!! Keep doing like this!!
I find it interesting that of the 97000 members who logged on this year, only 4000 ever leave comments
One of the most useful sites on the internet. Without Brickset I'd be spending an awful lot of time keeping track of my collection with Excel!
Thanks for all your efforts and keep up the great work!
I'm curious what Google Analytics says about Acquisition. Where's everyone coming from?
On my FanCons.com site (which has maybe only 10% of your traffic), I see:
91.93% organic search
7.31% direct
0.41% social
0.33% referral
0.00% (literally just 3 sessions) other
Most of my traffic is from people searching stuff like "comic con 2022" or "conventions near me". I'd imagine Brickset has more people coming in directly rather than finding it in a search.
I visit every day multiple times. Thanks to @Huw and the team for high quality content and honest reviews. Also many thanks to all the commenters who add so many interesting thoughts to our hobby! Long live Brickset!
I don't know what I'd do without Brickset. Incredible resource & functionality. Thank you, Huw & the team.
Jolly Yule to you all!
Yes, thank you @Huw and the team. This site has hugely helped my passion with Lego and seeing the full breadth of what Lego has to offer. There are some great articles. I also find the views of fellow fans really interesting in the comment fields - I don't always agree with each comment but there are enjoyable discussions!
Thanks again, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all here within the Brickset community
@PDelahanty said:
"I'm curious what Google Analytics says about Acquisition. Where's everyone coming from?"
That was revealed in this article: https://brickset.com/article/86548/who-visited-brickset-this-year-and-what-did-they-look-at
A huge CONGRATULATIONS to the whole Team behind Brickset !
My Number One LEGO Source a few Years now and always trustable.
I usually visit Brickset a few Times a Day
Without Brickset I wouldn't have a Database for my Collection
Greetings and Happy Holidays from Switzerland
Thank you for such a useful and reliable site! Happy Holidays!
Brickset is easily my favorite LEGO site and that includes lego.com! Well done and congrats!
Thank you for sharing the data, and very much, Huw & Co, for another year of excellent service :)
4,311 members posted 63,358 comments on our home page articles (2021: 4,700/68,000
j/k post 1. 1 post 2....
need catch up...
Merry Christmas Brickset staff and users!
Always interesting to read articles on data!
Merry Christmas to all and looking forward to another great Lego year in 2023!
According to urlrate.com: Brickset.com has a alexa rank of 20,268 in the world. It is a domain having .com extension. It is estimated worth of $ 1,251,360.00 and have a daily income of around $ 1,738.00. As no active threats were reported recently, brickset.com is SAFE to browse. Updated 1 minute 34 seconds ago.
This is testament to a well run operation! Thanks for your service and happy holidays to all.
I really want to know what's up with the huge traffic dip in march. Did I miss or forget something?
From someone who has visited Brickset almost daily since 2011, thank you to all the site admins for all you do and have a fantastic Christmas and New Year!
@BulbaNerd4000 said:
"I really want to know what's up with the huge traffic dip in march. Did I miss or forget something?"
It is explained in the article.
@HOBBES said:
"According to urlrate.com: Brickset.com has a alexa rank of 20,268 in the world."
Unfortunately Alexa stopped generating figures in May this year so presumably that figure is not current.
Wow! Brickset is worth so much to the community in so many ways (Brickset provided content, set reviews, wealth of information, amazing photography, etc) but also we, the users provide valuable information to one another in terms of our set reviews, sales alerts, trades, sales to one another, etc.
My favorite use for Brickset is the ability to track my ever growing collection. I have entered elements that I've purchased from LUGBULK, PaB Walls, Bricklink, PR etc so that when I see an interesting element or great price for a set or parts I know whether I already own this element and how many.
Thank you Huw for this amazing resource that I've been using for likely my entire AFOL journey.
Even though my love for the LEGO brand has cooled off significantly over the last few years, Brickset is still one of my favorite websites. Thank you and keep up the good work @Huw and team!
Also, Merry Christmas everyone.
Happy Christmas Huw,
My sincere thanks to you and everyone involved in Brickset for providing this valuable service.
Thank you all for your comments.
Merry Christmas to you!