Twitter is nice to have, but social media referrals as a whole are less than 1.5% of visitors. Inbound traffic comes from search first, direct visits second - in fairness, some of those direct visits may have come from social originally, but we can't tell. And yes, searches go to the archive, in part; but more modern topics tend to do far better in that respect, because they're being searched for right now.
It's great to have old furry news from a historical perspective - but the truth is, not a lot of people are interested in it. Either it has to be something people are interested in now, or it has have a large amount of content; Google rewards in-depth pieces on general topiccs. Like Fred's retrospective, widely linked on various sites, including Dogpatch. The only stories from that era or earlier in the top-50 (51.5% of unique visits) are Chipotle's decade-old (and then-comprehensive) review of furry story sites, and a one-liner about tails becoming a reality (probably thanks to the comments).
This reflects how many people consume content now - as individual pieces popping up in an automatically-curated feed, or as a result of a topic search, rather than them going to a specific source for all the latest information.
I don't think this invalidates your argument, of course. Flayrah's archive is a unique value - and it does get used. But the evidence does not suggest that this archive attracts a majority of current views, nor that it drives a large number of views to current work; people mostly bounce off after reading what they came to see. From a visitors perspective, newer work seems to has more interest than the older work - so it's not surprising if Flayrah is seen as a news site, not an archive.
Twitter is nice to have, but social media referrals as a whole are less than 1.5% of visitors. Inbound traffic comes from search first, direct visits second - in fairness, some of those direct visits may have come from social originally, but we can't tell. And yes, searches go to the archive, in part; but more modern topics tend to do far better in that respect, because they're being searched for right now.
The popular "old growth" is actually Zootopia - not your review or Mister Twister's, but a discussion of localized naming. There's games like Fortnite (and yes, that recent roundup, but the one from 2019 got more in the way of hits in the last three months), a few recent movie releases like Wish Dragon and Tune Squad.
It's great to have old furry news from a historical perspective - but the truth is, not a lot of people are interested in it. Either it has to be something people are interested in now, or it has have a large amount of content; Google rewards in-depth pieces on general topiccs. Like Fred's retrospective, widely linked on various sites, including Dogpatch. The only stories from that era or earlier in the top-50 (51.5% of unique visits) are Chipotle's decade-old (and then-comprehensive) review of furry story sites, and a one-liner about tails becoming a reality (probably thanks to the comments).
This reflects how many people consume content now - as individual pieces popping up in an automatically-curated feed, or as a result of a topic search, rather than them going to a specific source for all the latest information.
I don't think this invalidates your argument, of course. Flayrah's archive is a unique value - and it does get used. But the evidence does not suggest that this archive attracts a majority of current views, nor that it drives a large number of views to current work; people mostly bounce off after reading what they came to see. From a visitors perspective, newer work seems to has more interest than the older work - so it's not surprising if Flayrah is seen as a news site, not an archive.