Bluesky, the open -source social media platform, has made a significant change for publishers to better analyze the routing traffic on the platform. According to the Bluesky employee Emily Liu, the routing connections are now guided by Bluesky’s “Go.bsky.App” sub -domain, and it is provided to determine which visitors have reached their sites through social media sharing.
Users clicking on a shared link in Bluesky encounter a URL with an extension of “Go.bsky.app” for a short time before being directed to the target site. This technical update makes it easier for publishers to detect visitors from Bluesky through analysis tools. Previously, news centers had difficulty in understanding how these interactions were reflected in real website traffic, although the news centers could measure interactions on the platform. Thanks to the new system, it is possible to see Bluesky’s contribution to publishers more clearly.
Bluesky’s presenting a better routing traffic for publishers can also contribute to strengthening the position of the platform as a news source. For traditional media organizations and digital news platforms, social media plays a critical role in reaching the audience. Compared to competing platforms such as X (formerly called Twitter) and Threads, some news organizations have experienced a significant increase in routing traffic from Bluesky.
For example, in an analysis of the Boston Globe newspaper in November 2024, he announced that he had obtained three times the traffic he received through Threads from Bluesky. It was also reported that Bluesky performed 4.5 times higher in subscriber transformations. The Guardian Australia editor Dave Earley said that the routing traffic from Bluesky is twice the Threads and even left X behind. New York Times and some other small publishers said that they provide higher user interaction through Bluesky.
Bluesky’s Operation Director (COO) Rose Wang stressed that the platform does not reduce the shared connections from visibility, unlike other social media networks. Wang’s statement was interpreted as a criticism of Threads and X, especially. As it is known, Elon Musk, the owner of X, had previously confirmed that the algorithm of the platform was optimized to keep users on X longer, and therefore external connections did not come to the forefront as before.
According to November 2024 data of Sunday 2024, Bluesky provided a total of 38.6 million guidance traffic to different news sites. In the same period, Threads’ routing traffic was measured as 24.5 million. However, the company’s analysis showed that 42 percent of Threads’ routing traffic was directly directed to Instagram, the other platform of Meta. This stands out as a factor that limits Threads’ efficacy of being a direct source of traffic for news publishers.
Bluesky becomes a more advantageous alternative for news sharing
This change of Bluesky, especially for independent news sites and media organizations creates a valuable traffic source, making the platform a more advantageous alternative in sharing news compared to its competitors such as X and Threads. Today, the impact of social media platforms on news traffic is increasingly discussed, Bluesky’s adoption of a publisher -friendly approach can contribute to the adoption of the platform by more media organizations in the long run.