Reddit's visitors skyrocket in 2012 with 37 billion page views
Whether readers want to learn the complexities of how the Mars Curiosity rover was able to enter the Red Planet's atmosphere or just see photos of cats being weird, they can go to Reddit. The link-sharing community announced Monday its end-of-year stats and it appears that users are frequenting the site at an ever-increasing rate.
Reddit revealed that in 2012 it received 37 billion page views, 400 million unique visitors, and 30 million posts -- not bad for one of the most simple Web sites on the Internet.
The site's user population has skyrocketed since its inception. According to The Next Web, Reddit achieved 1 billion monthly page views in February 2011 and by December of that year it more than doubled that number. By October 2012, the site recorded more than 3.8 billion monthly page views and more than 46 million unique visitors.
The huge increase in traffic means Reddit has had to add more servers and other equipment and bring in more staff to maintain its site. This growth has forced it to spend money to keep up with the flow, while also promoting paid subscriptions and advertising.
One of the ways Reddit has driven more traffic to its site this past year is by hosting high-profile AMAs, or "ask me anything" sessions. In August, Reddit hosted President Obama, whose impromptu hour-long interview crippled the site's servers. Reddit has also done AMAs with the Mars Curiosity rover team, Gangnam Style's PSY, and U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren who asked users for ideas on a bill to protect Web sites accused of copyright violations.
Here are Reddit's top 10 posts of 2012 by page view:
- I am Barack Obama, President of the United States -- AMA (5,598,171 page views)
- What's your "picture you can't see without laughing"? (2,450,140 page views)
- What's your favorite picture on the whole Internet? (2,148,400 page views)
- Reddit, what do you look like before and after makeup? Is there a real difference? (2,142,071 page views)
- Today, a homeless looking man handed me $50 and this note. Do any of you have any idea what it means? (1,756,748 page views)
- What GIF makes you laugh every single time? (1,749,185 page views)
- I've been playing the same game of Civilization II for almost 10 years. This is the result. (1,651,956 page views)
- I am South Korean Singer, Rapper, Composer, Dancer and Creator of Gangnam Style PSY. AMA (1,514,034 page views)
- What's your secret that could literally ruin your life if it came out? (1,482,935 page views)
- I'm Snoop Lion! Ask me anything!! (1,467,071 page views)
This article originally appeared on CNET.