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    The Best and Worst Times to Publish your Posts

    May 08, 2008 13 Comments

    At one point or another I'm sure we've all wondered the same thing: "What is the best time to publish our posts?".

    Jake Luciani has done some pretty hefty research to find the answer to this question. By analyzing over 10,000 entries from Digg, Del.icio.us, Reddit and Mixx, he has discovered the optimum times of day, and days of the week to post for best results in social media and maximum comments.

    According to Luciani's results:

    • The best time to post is Tuesday to Friday between 10am and 2pm Pacific Standard Time (PST)
    • The worst time to post is on Saturday or Sunday between 3 and 5pm PST

    These findings seem to correlate with the times US blog readers are most active online (around lunchtime and just after work on weekdays), so posting around these times should work well for bloggers whose readership is mostly based in this area of the world.

    If your main readership is located in another part of the world, you may want to consider altering these times to suit your own audiences active times instead.

    Here are charts displaying the full results of Luciani's research using GMT (Greenwich Mean Time):

    Don't forget to account for the time-zone differences when working out the best "local" time for you to publish your blog posts!

    For a detailed explanation of Luciani's findings, head over to ReadWriteWeb's article which analyzes the data and method used in great detail.

    I hope this will be useful to you in deciding what is the best time to publish your blog posts. Please let me know what you think about Jake Luciani's research by leaving your comments and opinions below.

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    13 Comments: to “ The Best and Worst Times to Publish your Posts so far...

    • Jamal
      08 May 2008 00:25
       

      This is interesting information. As someone new to blogging, I'm going to try and stick to this schedule as best I can to maximize the number of my readers.

    • Kathy
      08 May 2008 00:29
       

      That makes perfect sense. I tend to post earlier in the morning, as that's when I gets some free time, but notice my hits trickle in through the afternoon.

    • grkgrl88
      08 May 2008 00:50
       

      Interesting info. Those definitely are the times I'm most active online.

    • wheresthebox
      08 May 2008 02:10
       

      I've been wondering about this lately and trying to figure out some pattern, so this is really good info. Thanks for passing it on!

    • effay
      08 May 2008 08:52
       

      So...is the red on the graphs the good times to post or the bad?

      By the way, I've been wondering about the post timing thing for a few weeks now. My guess was that posting after work, before dinner or after work, after dinner would be best.

    • Almakos
      08 May 2008 11:43
       

      nice article, now thinking how to use this info...

      2 effay:
      horizontal line shows average frequency
      so reasonable to assume that red columns is a bad time, 'cause it is below average.

    • Julian Schoffel
      08 May 2008 11:46
       

      This is a tricky one - I found that by posting some of my features in news aggregate sites I could get a massive spike, but it doesn't last long - maybe a week or so for really popular articles. Plus the bounce rate is high.

      I would hazard a guess that the best way to get regular, stable traffic is by networking with other bloggers (that you respect), getting lots of backlinks in bigger sites (and going up in search engine rankings), and maybe having your co-bloggers linking to each other's articles to leverage each other's traffic. But not in a cynical way mind you - I hate traffic exchanges.

    • Rajeev Edmonds
      08 May 2008 17:00
       

      Now I have set the correct time in my feedburner account. Thanks for the post. I also visited aideRSS site. It's a good find. :-)

    • necktraction
      08 May 2008 20:44
       

      I made that observation, too. maybe because it's lunch break and people surf a lot....

    • Your Very Best Friend
      08 May 2008 23:47
       

      I need you help! Check out my blog..your very best friend!

    • nick@podxies
      09 May 2008 02:03
       

      I definetely got it all wrong then!
      I thought and I am dead sure I read somewhere that the best time to post was during the w/e.!
      Thanx Amanda really illuminating As usual

    • Casey @ OYFP
      09 May 2008 17:04
       

      Since my blog's target audience is very local, I think I'll take your suggestions with a grain of salt. I'll try to post them just before lunch my time (EST) in an effort to make sure those who I want to read my blog, are reading it.

      Thanks for the info!

    • My Vision
      10 May 2008 20:53
       

      Now that I can schedule my posts I'm definitely going to try this. Thanks for the info!