The Brockley Central Zeitgeist 2013

2013 saw another big rise in traffic for Brockley Central, which should earn its three millionth visit some time in February 2014. Facebook and Twitter are now the most important sources of traffic to the site, with Google dropping from number one to number three in the list of top referring sites and Bing disappearing altogether.

The result of this change is that the Zeitgeist list of top search terms for the year tells us little about the interests of BC regulars, and instead shows what those with a more casual interest in the area are looking for. Once again, there is a lot of churn, with last year's most-searched term "The Gantry" dropping out of the top 30 this year, as presumably, we've all worked out what and where it is. Instead, people in 2013 were preoccupied with the fate of temporarily-closed venues like Jam Circus, Smiles and the Ladywell Tavern and new arrivals like Chinwag and the Malaysian Deli. The popularity of building services like Murat the electrician, Harry's Guttering and builders Bells of Westminster, together with the growth in traffic to the Recommended Tradespeople and Classifieds pages, suggests that people are spending more time improving and maintaining their homes, either because the upturn in the property market is making people more likely to think about moving, or more likely to stay put and make the best of what they have.

As ever, we've stripped out general terms like Brockley, Brockley Central or Lewisham.