Examiner.com Celebrates 3 Years

DENVER, April 7, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Examiner.com, the insider source for local, celebrates its three-year anniversary this month, marking a phenomenal growth trend in traffic and visitors, as well as content creation and innovation in local information delivery.

(Photo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110407/LA79046)

Launched in April of 2008, Examiner.com started with 68 markets and a little over 80 contributors in the United States—it has now expanded to 244 cities including six Canadian markets, and added its 70,000th contributor in March of 2011. At launch, Examiner.com had two million monthly unique visitors, and now averages over 20 million, increasing to the 72nd largest domain in the US in February according to comScore, and is coming off its most successful month to date, measuring 25.8 million unique visitors according to Omniture.

"Our Examiners are what make this success possible," said Rick Blair, CEO of Examiner.com. "We have developed a business model that successfully blends topical and local content, and our Examiners write articles in a manner that proves they are knowledgeable about their assigned subject matter and they make it relevant on a local level. This content continues to be appealing and have value to the markets we serve, and that is all fueled by the passion of our contributors. I would like to extend a big thank you to each and every one them—this has been a very exciting three years."

Examiners come from all backgrounds and have a common desire to share their knowledge and experience to help and inform others. A sampling of Examiners includes active and retired journalists; meteorologists; pro and amateur athletes; fashion models; published authors; photographers; government workers; professors; PhDs; stay-at-home moms; musicians; real estate agents; business owners and entrepreneurs.

In three years, Examiners have created over two million pieces of authentic, original content, and that content has been viewed over 1.4 billion times.

"We're thrilled to be part of the evolution of local content," said Suzie Austin, SVP of Content and Marketing for Examiner.com. "What we are doing has never been done with this type of scale, and on top of that we have been able to scale with quality, which is a huge nod to our staff that continues to remain committed to the growth, training and support of our Examiners. Our Examiners are an amazing, eclectic group, and we are honored to be able to work with all them, and want to extend our sincerest gratitude, and also a big congratulations, as these accomplishments are theirs as well."

Examiners have access to Examiner University, an innovative training platform launched in 2009 to enhance and foster everything from headline writing to image formatting. Examiner.com also recently announced the appointment of an editorial advisory board rich with notable journalism industry veterans to further bolster its content and contributors.

Several key partnerships have accentuated Examiner.com's growth as well—in the past year the company has inked deals with companies like Reuters America to distribute its content, Living Social to provide local daily deals, and dynamic social media relationships with Facebook and Foursquare.

Examiner.com also relaunched both its main site as well as its backend publishing system in August 2010, becoming the largest consumer-driven site on the groundbreaking platform Drupal.

In addition, Examiner.com was awarded the Standard of Excellence Award by the New Media Institute in 2010.

For more information on Examiner.com and its achievements, as well as an infographic on Examiner.com's growth over the past three years, visit the Examiner.com Blog.

For more on the site, visit Examiner.com.

About Examiner.com

Launched in April 2008, Examiner.com serves 244 markets across North America and is the insider source for local. Examiner.com feeds the passion the local community has for its favorite interests, activities and establishments by connecting them with credible and informed contributors who write and share information with the passion and insights only a local insider can  provide. Examiner.com is a division of the Clarity Digital Group, LLC, wholly owned by The Anschutz Company, a Denver-based investment company with a broad array of assets in print and digital media, live sports and entertainment, hospitality, film production and exhibition and wind energy development.

SOURCE Examiner.com