The Web is getting filled with blogs that are mere “reposters” that don’t actually bring anything new to the community. These are usually the ones looking for a quick way of attracting readers with a lot of posts (to monetize on the page views) and for which “quantity” is a good-enough metric for success.
But as more and more online publications turn to this approach of “more is better”, effectively reducing the quality of individual posts, the Web becomes nothing more than a noise-filled medium that inevitability loses its appeal. And then, readers start looking for alternatives that fill the void left by these “reposters”. Alternatives that chose the “quality before quantity” approach.
We’re actually publishing, on average, roughly one-third fewer posts on Salon than we were a year ago (from 848 to 572 in December; 943 to 602 in January). So: 33 percent fewer posts; 40 percent greater traffic.
It sounds simple, maybe obvious, but: We’ve gone back to our primary mission and have been focusing on originality. And it’s working.