A Look Back At Dawgs By Nature

I joined Dawgs By Nature November 8, 2006. That will make for 8 years on DBN come November,

For a few others, they have been here longer. No big deal, the only thing that matters is that if you are reading this, you have found DBN and you trust this site to cover the Browns better than anyone.

Even though I am an author on the site, I am but a very, very small cog in a machine that is worked by many people. Chris Pokorny has been working this site since it started. So far back I can't even find it. But when the Browns were drafting bad Quarterback after bad Quarterback, Chris was there covering it all. This site wouldn't be here without it.

In late 2006-early 2007, Dawgs By Nature had a banner month. March, the month before the Browns were to select Joe Thomas, saw 8,367 page visits. The following month we had a slight down tick at 7,417. Not surprised that these two months were the highest, draft time is usually the high points for the NFL teams and the need for information. That was a massive spike considering we had 564 page views in the month of June of 2006.

The next year DBN saw another uptick in traffic, with August of 2007 being the high point. Remember how great that was? Browns went 3-1 in the preseason and had just completed one of the best drafts in modern history (oops..). Brady Quinn, Joe Thomas and people were pumped. DBN reaped the rewards. 24,761 page views meant that people were excited, ready to go and wanted to talk Browns football.

The following year held firm with August of 2008 reaching just over 32k. But again, once the draft rolled around, the site exploded. In March of 2009 we exploded to 137,639 page views. While the traffic did slow down some, DBN would toy with 6 figures on and off for the next few months.

The start of the 2009 season saw visits climb over 110k, but once the team fizzled, so did the traffic. Down into the 70k-90k range for the rest of the season. But again, once draft season rolled back around DBN grew stronger. Over 150k page views for March and April. As I said before, the draft season is always strong.

Once the start of the 2010 season rolled around, the numbers again ticked North. Sitting solidly at the 120k range, but the team didn't play up to expectations, and the Browns visits dropped below the 100k range for the first time in almost 6 months. DBN saw an odd spike, January of 2011, or as we know it as, the firing of Eric Mangini. The firing led to much debate here, and the need for updates on the coaching search led many fans to the best coverage of the Orange and Brown.

2011-2012 is when the site took another big step forward. Start of the 2011 season brought in over 224k page views in the month of August. Unfortunately we saw the same old story as the Browns faded, the traffic taped off some. Not too much though as the lowest spot was still in the six figures. When the 2012 draft rolled around DBN was humming. The argument of Robert Griffin III, Andrew Luck or trading down was firing up the boards. For the first time in site history DBN surpassed the quarter million mark with 275,921 visits in April of 2012.

That brings us to the past 12 months. Thanks to the tireless work of Chris, Rufio, Jon, plus the addition of the fantastic new writers Mike, Josh, Dan, Zach and Moon, we have been able to take the next step. Thanks to the excellent draft write ups, the 2013 draft articles and the Jimmy Haslam FBI coverage, DBN skyrocketed to 418k page visits in April. We also broke the 800k mark on page views in that month as well. We saw our first article go viral with over 1,200 shares on Facebook and trend on twitter. We broke down more draft prospects than Cleveland.com and saw new readers from far away lands like Korea and Australia.

As we start so many new ventures here at DBN, like a radio show, a possible pre-game show and more interaction on social media, it's important to remember where we all started. Thanks to those who did this before us, and let us hope we take off from here.

As always, Go Browns and the Steelers suck.