- Mongabay’s traffic hit a new record in 2019, with pageviews increasing 34% to 102 million and monthly active users climbing 50% to 4.3 million. But the high level numbers don’t reveal much, so here are some more interesting insights on how various topics performed and how our articles fared across geographies.
- Given Mongabay’s bureaus in Indonesia and India, it’s not surprising that those countries represent two of our three biggest markets. The Philippines, where we hired a staff writer in 2019, ranks fourth. Mongabay has especially high readership on a per capita basis in certain Latin American and Asian countries, led by Bolivia, Indonesia, and Paraguay.
- Wildlife-related stories attracted the most readers in 2019, while climate science stories were the least read.
- This post is insider content, which is available to paying subscribers.
Mongabay’s traffic hit a new record in 2019, with pageviews increasing 34% to 102 million and monthly active users climbing 50% to 4.3 million. But the high level numbers don’t reveal much, so here are some more interesting insights on how various topics performed and how our articles fared across geographies. In summary: wildlife stories — especially pangolins — outperform, whereas climate science stories consistently fail to attract readers.
Insights based on user geography
Given Mongabay’s bureaus in Indonesia and India, it’s not surprising that those countries represent two of our three biggest markets. The Philippines, where we hired a staff writer in 2019, ranks fourth, just behind the U.S. Latin America — including Mesoamerica, the Caribbean, and South America — accounts for 15% of our total readership. Africa amounts to less than 3% of readership.
This section includes data from all of Mongabay’s bureaus.
Share of traffic and readership by country
| Country | Pageviews | Users |
|---|---|---|
| Indonesia | 28.8% | 22.2% |
| United States | 14.7% | 15.0% |
| India | 10.4% | 13.6% |
| Philippines | 4.2% | 5.1% |
| Myanmar (Burma) | 3.1% | 3.8% |
| Bangladesh | 3.1% | 3.7% |
| United Kingdom | 2.4% | 2.5% |
| Colombia | 2.1% | 2.3% |
| Peru | 2.1% | 2.1% |
| Nepal | 1.9% | 2.0% |
| Canada | 1.9% | 1.9% |
| Mexico | 1.9% | 1.9% |
| Argentina | 1.6% | 1.7% |
| Bolivia | 1.5% | 1.4% |
| Venezuela | 1.3% | 1.2% |
| Brazil | 1.2% | 1.2% |
| Australia | 1.1% | 1.1% |
| Other countries | 16.7% | 16.7% |
Mongabay has especially high readership on a per capita basis in certain Latin American and Asian countries, led by Bolivia, Indonesia, and Paraguay. Globally, in 2019 Mongabay had 13 pageviews per every 1,000 people on the planet.
Readership per capita (Pageviews/1000 people)
| Country | Pageviews/1000 people |
|---|---|
| Bolivia | 128.66 |
| Indonesia | 108.52 |
| Paraguay | 89.09 |
| Nepal | 69.21 |
| Singapore | 67.44 |
| Peru | 65.59 |
| Myanmar (Burma) | 58.80 |
| Nicaragua | 52.90 |
| Ecuador | 52.84 |
| Canada | 50.54 |
| United States | 45.69 |
| Cambodia | 45.39 |
| Venezuela | 44.86 |
| Colombia | 43.36 |
| Australia | 43.00 |
| Philippines | 39.69 |
| Argentina | 37.40 |
| United Kingdom | 35.76 |
| Chile | 30.57 |
| Malaysia | 22.76 |
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One measure of engagement is the average time a person spends on an article. By this metric, Peru ranks at the top of the list.
Average time on page (Average=100)
| Country | Avg time |
|---|---|
| Peru | 228.04 |
| Ghana | 219.60 |
| Nigeria | 184.20 |
| Ecuador | 170.69 |
| United Kingdom | 168.25 |
| Spain | 163.27 |
| Colombia | 158.09 |
| Netherlands | 147.25 |
| Bolivia | 141.27 |
| Mexico | 140.84 |
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Insights based on content
Every Mongabay article is tagged with topics and locations that reflect its subject matter (visit these linked pages to configure automated alerts so you will know whenever we publish stories on topics or regions you care about most). Accordingly in the context of the tables below, “location” represents the subject matter of the article rather than the geography of the reader.
The following tables include data only for news.mongabay.com, our global English language site.
Most articles (country tag)
| Indonesia | 264 |
| Brazil | 195 |
| United States | 91 |
| Sri Lanka | 55 |
| Peru | 52 |
| Malaysia | 49 |
| Madagascar | 45 |
| Philippines | 45 |
| Colombia | 42 |
| India | 39 |
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In 2019, the global (English-language) bureau produced the most stories about Indonesia. Brazil, which is home to the world’s largest extent of tropical rainforest, followed.
Mongabay added new staff positions for the global bureau in Brazil, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, and the Philippines in 2019.
Most articles (region tag)
| Asia | 438 |
| Southeast Asia | 371 |
| South America | 308 |
| Latin America | 264 |
| Africa | 200 |
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Most articles (bioregion/island tag)
| Amazon | 164 |
| Sumatra | 63 |
| Borneo | 62 |
| Cerrado | 41 |
| Java | 31 |
–
Highest average time on page, by location tag
| Kalimantan | 153% |
| Mexico | 141% |
| Sulawesi | 134% |
| European Union | 132% |
| Colombia | 131% |
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Highest average pageviews, by location tag (Average=100)
| India | 233% |
| Kenya | 182% |
| Philippines | 179% |
| Europe | 166% |
| South Asia | 162% |
| Amazon | 149% |
| East Africa | 147% |
| West Africa | 145% |
| Southern Africa | 131% |
| Vietnam | 127% |
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Lowest average pageviews, by location tag (Average=100)
| Ecuador | 65% |
| Oceania | 59% |
| Atlantic Ocean | 57% |
| Canada | 52% |
| Colombia | 47% |
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Most articles, by topic
| Conservation | 769 |
| Forests | 672 |
| Wildlife | 560 |
| Animals | 545 |
| Rainforests | 542 |
| Biodiversity | 486 |
| Deforestation | 482 |
| Tropical Forests | 435 |
| Endangered Species | 331 |
| Research | 320 |
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Highest average pageviews, by topic (min 25 articles)
| Animal Behavior | 206% |
| Cats | 203% |
| Farming | 194% |
| Indigenous Reserves | 176% |
| Human-wildlife Conflict | 175% |
| Wildlife Trafficking | 164% |
| Hunting | 158% |
| Mammals | 155% |
| Wildlife Trade | 155% |
| Poverty | 154% |
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Wildlife-related stories attracted the most readers in 2019: also of note is that stories tagged as ‘happy-upbeat’, ones that depicted people taking action or that generally contained good news for people and planet, were ranked at 141% of average.
The table above includes only topic tags that appeared on 25 or more stories; the table below includes topic tags that appeared on at least 8 stories.
Highest average pageviews, by topic (min 8 articles)
| Topic (min articles=8) | Articles | Pageviews |
|---|---|---|
| Pangolins | 11 | 647% |
| Spiders | 9 | 614% |
| Carnivores | 8 | 345% |
| Snakes | 13 | 310% |
| Invertebrates | 22 | 303% |
| Culture | 14 | 267% |
| Jaguars | 9 | 247% |
| Environmental Economics | 11 | 237% |
| Predators | 10 | 218% |
| Amazon Biodiversity | 22 | 214% |
| Animal Behavior | 60 | 206% |
| Turtles And Tortoises | 8 | 206% |
| Human Migration | 8 | 205% |
| Cats | 26 | 203% |
| Cloud Forests | 8 | 202% |
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Climate science stories were the least read stories on Mongabay in 2019.
Lowest average pageviews, by topic
| Carbon Emissions | 48% |
| Greenhouse Gas Emissions | 48% |
| Impact Of Climate Change | 48% |
| Satellite Imagery | 46% |
| Climate Science | 43% |
| Carbon Sequestration | 41% |
| Adaptation To Climate Change | 41% |
| United Nations | 39% |
| Climate Change Politics | 35% |
| Global Warming | 33% |
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Top external sources of traffic
- Google Search
- Bing Search
- Yahoo
- Google Classroom
- Google News
- Ecosia
- YouTube