Last year was a lot. COVID-19, elections, the continued fall-out from Brexit, and everything else made 2020 a year like no other. We all felt the impact in one way or another and, not surprisingly, our content consumption habits changed significantly as a result of the events of last year.

We analyzed last year’s data around referrals, engagement, and consumption patterns from across our network of thousands of the web’s biggest sites and articulated the impact of 2020 on content-consumption in this comprehensive data study. We look at the winners and losers, the short-term trends and those that will stick around for longer, and how content creators should be modifying their strategies for 2021.

Download this data study to learn exactly how the digital content landscape changed last year and what you can do now to capitalize and more forward. This report covers:

• Top content categories: Health and politics content saw drastic spikes in engagement/consumption early last year while other categories experienced downturns in attention.
• Changes in referral sources: Nearly every referral source we analyzed (direct, internal, social, search, and other) saw a hike in traffic in March 2020, but not all platforms benefited equally.
• New growth markets for content: We discuss which content categories benefited from growth, and which we expect to continue that growth going forward.