With their movement curtailed to curb the spread of Covid-19 under the movement control order (MCO), many people are keeping abreast of current events at home through various platforms and The Star Online is proving to be one of their reliable go-to sources for the latest news.

Interestingly, or rather, not surprisingly, The Star Online readers have been spending a longer time on each page or article, thus resulting in a higher completion rate, since early this year as the disease outbreak intensified and people largely stayed home.

According to statistics from SimilarWeb, desktop and mobile web traffic for The Star Online has surged during the MCO, which started with the first phase on March 18 and is heading into a fourth phase that ends on May 12.

Under Star Media Group (SMG), The Star’s digital edition is among popular English news portals that registered the highest number of visits during the MCO period.The statistics by SimilarWeb – a website that provides web analytics services for businesses – also showed that The Star Online had in the month of March achieved more than 25 million total visits.

In January and February, the portal received more than 15 million and 17 million total visits respectively.

SMG analytics and digital products senior general manager Freddy Loo said statistics also showed that the number of completion rate for each article read on The Star Online had gone up since January.

“We always strive to enhance our user experience, hence we look at the completion rate for the page or article.

“So what we found is rather interesting that more and more people are reading the articles entirely and understanding the content rather than just skimming through the headlines,” he said.

Loo said The Star Online tracked its readership by different segments – the casual, engaged and brand lovers.

This, he explained, was to provide a personalised experience for readers and to ensure the content met their needs.

“During the MCO, the number of readers and also the completion rate of articles across all segments have improved.

“This really shows that more people are referring to us for information and spend more time reading the articles in-depth,” he added.

Apart from the news section, Loo said the other top three segments that had seen a larger jump in terms of web traffic were business, lifestyle and tech.

“It makes sense, everyone wants to get the latest news.

“People are staying at home, they are anxious to know what is going on, some need entertainment, some want to learn a thing or two,” said Loo.

“We help readers with these things and especially now, in the age of fake news, people want to know what is truly happening,” he added.

“So if readers want to know about their community, they come to The Star Online.”