Springing ahead

March turned out to be one of the busiest months ever for the web sites. Web traffic at kjonline.com and onlinesentinel.com hit a new milestone last month. For the first time, the two sites combined for more than 3 million page views. We also had 286,000 unique visitors. Page views are about 20 percent higher than they were a year ago and unique visitors are up by 30 percent from 2008. That's pretty good growth.There are multiple reasons for the increase in traffic. I can make educated guesses, but I can also measure with great precision what makes our audience click. Each day I put together a report on which stories draw the most clicks (or page views) from visitors to the sites. For example, the most popular story on the Sentinel's web site Monday was the police report. On the KJ site, it was the piece on Crossfit training, a bit of a surprise. Stories about crime, sex, drugs and mayhem are the most popular. 'If it bleeds, it leads' is somewhat of a mantra in newsrooms around the globe. On the web, it's no different and March's traffic statistics back up that premise. Here is a list of the stories that drew the most interest from online readers in March. Morning Sentinel "Meet Max the jail dog" by Doug Harlow "Skowhegan: Walking papers at Sappi" by Scott Monroe "VASSALBORO: A new brew in town" by Scott Monroe "SKOWHEGAN No probe pending in toddler death" by Doug Harlow "OAKLAND: Father charged with assault on newborn" by Colin Hickey Kennebec Journal "Topless coffee shop opens" by Scott Monroe "Snowe, Collins: Ado over Limbaugh reflects struggles of party" by Portland Press Herald "Traffic justice urged" by Sue Cover "Chelsea woman ends daylong police standoff peacefully" by Craig Crosby "Woman has malpractice lawsuit vs. MaineGeneral" by Betty Adams