As you know by now, I am tracking traffic coming via our posts from @heiseonline (and the other accounts) with the help of an UTM-parameter added to our shared URLs. I don't know, how much traffic is coming via URLs, that others are sharing (because they lack the parameter).

But, for some weeks now, mastodon.social is sending a referrer (thx @gargron). That's why I can compare traffic coming from there via our links and traffic coming from there without our parameter. And that's how I know that we get roughly 40% more visits from #Mastodon than we "see".

I made a new graph to illustrate that. The total traffic (here "≈ Mastodon") is a bit fuzzy, to make clear, that that that can only be an estimate (maybe people are sharing more on mastodon.social than elsewhere, for example).

Interestingly, there is a similar phenomenon on #Bluesky because they don't send a referrer on mobile. If I extrapolate the rate of visits from other posts on PC, I get a rate of 20% of "extra traffic". I added that to the graph, too. ☝🏼

Oh, and keep in mind: Between the fall of 2023 and the fall of 2024 the UTM-parameter didn't work correctly on #Mastodon, and we missed some traffic from there. But that doesn't explain the big bump at the end of 2024. I can only guess, what's that about.