Changes...

I get regular access to The Orion's online readership numbers. I've noticed a real change in our readership for October.

While I won't give exact numbers, in September The Orion had almost 80,000 unique visitors and over 280,000 page views.

For October, the number of visitors will be only around 60 percent of September's numbers, but the page views should be about the same.

This means, while fewer people went to The Orion's Web site, those who did viewed more pages.

I'm torn as to if I should see this as a positive step or not. I'm disappointed about losing all those unique viewers. However, I'm thrilled that the overall viewing of the site hasn't decreased along with that. Keeping the page views up can encourage local online advertising (as long as I keep on the business department about that).

Of course, the business department is also in negotiation to potentially purchase TheOrion.com from its current Canadian owner that doesn't use the domain, so keep fingers crossed and knock on wood about that.