openDemocracy’s Readership and Reach

openDemocracy has over 3.5 million unique views per year (that is, over 3.5 million different computers per year access openDemocracy), with 1 million repeat visitors per year.

We have 230,000 links on the web pointing to the site, and 2,300 of those coming from a “.edu” (US academic) domain. We have 650 links from Wikipedia.

SEOmoz, the web-site ranking service, give openDemocracy a “visibility” score of 8.5/10, corresponding to “one of the best-known websites in your field”.

There is a loyal core of about 150,000 visitors who spend significant time on the site, reading multiple articles and returning weekly. 

Email reach

openDemocracy has an opt-in email list of about 45,000 members who have asked to be kept informed about openDemocracy and receive articles from us. We send 3 editorial emails per week and achieve a click-through rate of 15%, which is very high by email-list standards. 

Geographical reach

openDemocracy’s readership

USA  - 25%
UK - 25%
Rest of Europe - 25%
Asia, Africa, Latin America - 25%

Educated background

The readership is highly educated, with 96% having a university education, and 60% a postgraduate education. The age-range is balanced between students, professionals and retirees. Occupationally, there are a large number of lawyers, accountants, civil-servants, students and media professionals. Respondents cite “Independence” and “Belief in Mission” as the reason for supporting openDemocracy.

Influence

openDemocracy's readers are influential: 4% are in government, 4% involved in drafting legislation, 6% professionally involved in influencing policy making, 15% involved in media commentary and 29% regularly asked for their opinion on political topics. That is a total of 60% of readers are "influencers" at some level.