'Post-Intelligencer' Says Web-Only Numbers Are "Encouraging," But Why?

The now Web-only Seattle Post-Intelligencer is "encouraged" by traffic data since it shut down its print edition in mid-March, according to a story this morning in Editor and Publisher. Here's what qualifies as encouraging: an increase in Web traffic of 1.2 percent, or 1.25 million page views, as compared with the same period last year, and a decline in unique visitors of 10.7 percent to 199,000.

Surely the P-I is traveling in uncharted territory here, but it's hard to see how this is encouraging. Theoretically -- and we're all theorists right now -- traffic to the online site should jump after the print edition shut down, particularly in unique users, who, deprived of their print fix, migrated to the online edition. A 1.2 percent increase in Web traffic over a year ago seems more indicative of the relentless migration to online than it does of a news property that just closed down one of its distribution channels.

It would be more helpful to know how traffic has changed since just before the site's mid-March close; that would paint more of a before/after picture than year-on-year numbers. I'm hoping they paint a more encouraging picture than the ones we have so far do.