Wikipedia:Article traffic jumps

Article traffic for Wikipedia entries has been seen to increase whenever the subject made the news, or the concept was mentioned in some prominent public article or other artistic work. Recent data is partially inaccurate as mobile views are not counted.

Please note; data on ordinary Wikipedia entries seems to indicate that website traffic regularly drops every Saturday. For evidence, you can view the statistics at this link: https://pageviews.toolforge.org/?pages=Dune&range=latest-90

Lists of most-viewed articles

 * Wikipedia_Signpost/2019-12-27/Traffic_report

2019–present
(sorted chronologically)
 * 1) Qasem Soleimani, 1.5m views when he was killed by US airstrike.
 * 2) Kobe Bryant, 9.5m views on the day of his death, January 26, 2020, then 8M on January 27.
 * 3) COVID-19 pandemic, 1.1m views March 12, 2020 after declared a pandemic March 11, later 12 consecutive days above a million March 16–27, had grown to around 700,000 daily views at former title 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak.
 * 4) Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Russo-Ukrainian War: spiked around |Ukraine|Vladimir_Putin|Volodymyr_Zelenskyy|Russo-Ukrainian_War February 24, 2022, at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Each aforementioned page received 1.3 to 2 million views per day at their peak. Other pages related to Russia and Ukraine saw |Ukrainian_language|Kyiv|Crimea|Donetsk_Oblast|Luhansk_Oblast smaller traffic jumps.
 * 5) Elizabeth II, 8.4m views on the day of her death, September 8, 2022.
 * 6) Israel, Hamas, Gaza Strip, Israel–Hamas war, State of Palestine, Israeli–Palestinian conflict: approached or exceeded 1 million views on |Gaza_Strip|Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war|State_of_Palestine|Hamas|Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict October 7-8, 2023, at the beginning of the Israel–Hamas war. Other pages related to Israel, Palestine, and Hamas saw |Jews|Hezbollah|Tel_Aviv|Jerusalem|Benjamin_Netanyahu|Israel_Defense_Forces|Palestinian_territories|Palestine_(region)|2023_Hamas-led_attack_on_Israel smaller traffic jumps.
 * 7) Matthew Perry, about 9 million after his death late October 2023.
 * 8) Francis Scott Key Bridge (Baltimore): reached 1.44 million views on March 26, 2024, the day of the bridge's collapse. The articles Baltimore, Francis Scott Key, and Maryland saw |Francis_Scott_Key|Maryland smaller traffic jumps.

2011–2018

 * (incomplete, ordered by approximate rank; uncertainty is because of carryover between days)


 * 1) Steve Jobs 7.4m page views on October 6, 2011 and 1.6m views on October 7.
 * 2) Robin Williams  6.5m page views on August 12, 2014 and 1.4m views on August 13.
 * 3) Donald Trump 6.1m page views on November 9, 2016, 2.7m views the next day, 1.5m views the day after that, and 1m views the day after that after his election.
 * 4) Michael Jackson  almost 1.4m page views on June 26 and 5.9m views on June 27, 2009  (hour of death, following hour; incl. redirects) .
 * 5) Whitney Houston  5.9m page views on February 12, 2012, the day after her death.
 * 6) Prince (musician)  5.8m page views on April 21, 2016, 5.5m page views on April 22, 2.1m page views on April 23, and 1.4m page views on April 24.
 * 7) Osama bin Laden, 4.8m page views on the day of his death, 2 May 2011, and 1.5m the next day. 1.1m the day after that.
 * 8) Paul Walker, 4.3m page views on December 1, 2013, the day after his death; 1.3m the next day.
 * 9) Amy Winehouse . 4.2m hits on 23 July 2011, the day she died, and 2.3m hits the next day.
 * 10) Donald Trump 4m page views on March 5, 2016, 2.4m views the day before, 3m views the day after, and 2.1m views the day after that.
 * 11) Halloween, 3.5 million hits on day of Halloween in October 2012.
 * 12) Ryan Dunn . 3.0m hits the day he died and 1.5m the next day.
 * 13) Avicii . 2.8m hits on April 20, 2018, the day he died and 2.5m the next day.
 * 14) Nelson Mandela, 2.7m hits on December 6, 2013, the day after his death.
 * 15) Sarah Palin . 2.5m hits the day that Palin's candidacy for U.S. Vice-President was announced; 1.1m the next day.
 * 16) Dian Fossey  had 2.4m views on January 16, 2014 due to a (Google Doodle) on her 82nd birth anniversary.
 * 17) Barack Obama . 2.3m hits after the U.S. Election Day in Nov. 2008.
 * 18) Brittany Murphy . 1.5m and 2.3m hits on the days following her death in December 2009.
 * 19) Donald Trump 2.1m page views on the day of his inauguration January 20, 2017 and 1.5m views the day after.
 * 20) George H W Bush 1.7m page views on December 1, 2018 the day after his death and 1.3m views on December 5, 2018 the day of his funeral.
 * 21) Star Wars: The Force Awakens . 1.5m hits on opening day December 18, 2015. Five consecutive days above 1m.
 * 22) Chechnya . Jumped from 2,000 hits per day to 1.5m views when the suspects of the Boston Marathon bombings were revealed to be Chechnyans Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
 * 23) Swine influenza . 1.3m hits each on two days in late April 2009 after the first U.S. death related to the virus was reported, up from under 10 views per day.
 * 24) James Gandolfini . 1.3m hits on June 20, 2013, the day after his death.
 * 25) Cory Monteith  1.3m hits on 14 July when his death was announced, up from around 2000 per day in June
 * 26) Harvey Weinstein, 1.2m hits in October 2017, when he was accused of multiple sexual assaults and rapes.
 * 27) Tim Kaine, 1.2 m hits in July 2016, upon Kaine being selected as Hillary Clinton's running mate for 2016 election.
 * 28) Margaret Thatcher . Jumped from an average of slightly less than 10,000 hits per day to 1.2m views on the day she died.
 * 29) Jenni Rivera . 1.1m hits on December 10, 2012, the day after she died.
 * 30) Donald Trump 1.1m page views on February 2, 2016.
 * 31) Death of Caylee Anthony . Over one million hits on each of two days when Casey Anthony was acquitted
 * 32) UEFA Euro 2016 . 1.1m hits on June 22, 2016, when the group stage ended.
 * 33) Barack Obama . Jumped around Inauguration Day for Barack Obama, Jan. 2009, probably totaling over 1m in a given 24-hour period.
 * 34) Justin Trudeau, just over 1 million hits the day after he won the Canadian premiership.
 * 35) Halloween  finished just ahead of the 1 million mark on October 31, 2013.

Articles showing fewer than 1 million hits in a day

 * (ordered approximately chronologically, largely incomplete)

2009 items

 * 1) Lawrence Kutner, fictional character of the TV series House, when he died.
 * 2) Abraham Lincoln . Day of 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth.
 * 3) Google's hoaxes  jumped on April 1, 2009, day of annual Google hoaxes.
 * 4) Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series) . Jumped around time of series finale.
 * 5) Farrah Fawcett, the day she died.

2010 items

 * 1) Pete Rouse . Jumped when Pete Rouse was appointed Interim Chief of Staff for Pres. Barack Obama.
 * 2) Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System . Jumped for unknown reasons, August 6, 2010. possibly due to awarding of major defense contract, as per  this article, "Aegis upgrade for destroyers, cruisers".
 * 3) Prince William of Wales, jumped when Prince William's engagement was announced.
 * 4) The Maid (Seinfeld episode) ; jumped when linked to from Yahoo News article.
 * 5) WikiLeaks  jumped when the US diplomatic cables were released.
 * 6) Operation Payback  jumped when Visa Inc. and MasterCard were targeted, whose articles jumped as well.
 * 7) Necrosis  jumped when named in the alt text of xkcd comic.
 * 8) George VI of the United Kingdom, jumped upon release of biographical film, The King's Speech.
 * 9) Kate Middleton  jumped when her engagement to Prince William of Wales was announced.

2011 items

 * 1) Atlantis ; jumped when a new scientific theory on location of Atlantis was given widespread news coverage.
 * 2) Claudia Heill  spiked drastically on the day of her death (viewed 1–7 times on other days).
 * 3) Abbottabad  jumped on the day Osama bin Laden was killed there.
 * 4) Lokomotiv Yaroslavl . Jumped from around 50 views per day to 214,000 after the crash.
 * 5) Roza Shanina  jumped from around 50–200 views per day to 1,600 views on November 10, 2011 for unknown reason.
 * 6) New Nationalism  jumped after being mentioned in speech by President Obama, Dec. 6, 2011.
 * 7) Kim Jong Il  (300–400 per day to 72.5k) and Kim Jong Un  (15–20 per day to 12.5k) jumped on 19 December 2011 when the former's death was announced.

2012 items

 * 1) Fabrice Muamba  jumped from around 100 per day to nearly 460,000 on 17 March 2012 after suffering a cardiac arrest on the pitch during an FA Cup quarter final.
 * 2) One Direction  surpassed 250,000 views the day after their performance on Saturday Night Live in April 2012.
 * 3) Roanoke Colony, jumped in May 2012 after news articles about new clues found on 400-year-old map regarding colony.
 * 4) United Airlines Flight 232  Jumped on May 10, 2012, upon the death of Dennis Fitch, one of the pilots involved in that incident.
 * 5) Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting  surpassed 500,000 views the day after the shootings took place.
 * 6)  Autorotation (helicopter)  jumped for unknown reasons in December 2012. Jumped in January 2013 when mentioned in an article about an incident in Rio De Janeiro.

2013 items

 * 1) 2012 DA14  spiked to 349,895 page views when it approached Earth sooner than expected—on the same day Chelyabinsk meteor was visible over Russia. Chelyabinsk meteor  and Shock wave  saw a surge of pageviews the day after the meteor passed through Earth's atmosphere. A much larger traffic surge for Chelyabinsk meteor followed on New Year's Eve that year.
 * 2) Oscar Pistorius  reached 360,000 views following his murder of Reeva Steenkamp in February 2013.
 * 3) Harlem Shake (meme)  has been viewed over 3 million times in February 2013, the month that the meme broke out. It hit its peak on February 19, where it surpassed 370,000 views.
 * 4) Harlem Shake, despite being a disambiguation page, has been viewed over 4 million times, with its peak of over 433,000 hit on February 15th.
 * 5) Pope Benedict XVI  jumped from around 5000 hits per day to over 477,000 on the day he announced he was retiring.
 * 6) Pope Francis I  jumped from single digit views per day as a redirect to a 1979 American novel to over 100,000 when the new pope's name was announced, despite occurring late in the day for most of the world.
 * 7) 2013 Boston Marathon bombings  nearly hit 470,000 views the day after the bombing took place.
 * 8) Equilibrium (film)  soared from roughly 1000 views per day to 289,555 views on July 10, 2013 for an unknown reason.
 * 9) Shooting of Trayvon Martin  surpassed the 100,000 mark eleven consecutive days in July 2013, peaking at 854,000 the day after Martin's shooter George Zimmerman was found not guilty of murder.
 * 10) Twerking  has topped 100,000 a number of times since the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, peaking on August 27th at more than 355,000.
 * 11) Duck Dynasty  jumped in December 2013 after Phil Robertson was suspended from the program for homophobic remarks he made during an interview with Drew Magary

2014 items

 * 1) Woody Allen, Mia Farrow , and Ronan Farrow  saw a huge surge in pageviews on 13 January, the day after Allen was recognized for his lifetime achievements at the 71st Golden Globe Awards, and then derided by the Farrows, who maintained that Allen sexually abused Mia's daughter, Dylan.
 * 2) Flappy Bird  grew gradually throughout the first week of February 2014, but spiked a week later when its developer removed the game from the iTunes app store. Its peak was at 126,000 views on February 10th].
 * 3) Paco de Lucía  peaked at 78,999 pageviews on 26 February, the day after he died. Related topics Al Di Meola, Entre dos aguas , and New Flamenco  also saw sudden increases.
 * 4) Donald Sterling  surpassed the 100,000 mark for six consecutive days in April 2014, after the Los Angeles Clippers owner was banished from the National Basketball Association. It peaked at just under 570,000 page views on 29 April.
 * 5) Narendra Modi  jumped ten times on 16 May 2014, the day his party lead alliance won the 2014 Indian General elections receiving more than 250,000 page views.
 * 6) Ice Bucket Challenge  jumped quickly in August 2014, once the social media campaign started gaining mainstream attention. On 21 August it had 559,582 views.
 * 7) Joan Rivers . Jumped upon news of Joan Rivers' medical complications.
 * 8) Jules Bianchi  jumped from averaging about 100–200 views a day to over 54 thousand following his crash in the 2014 Japanese Grand Prix.
 * 9) Kailash Satyarthi  jumped from around 10 views per day to 259,000 when he shared the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize.
 * 10) Shooting of Michael Brown  reached over 487,000 views the day after Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson was not indicted for his death.

2015 items

 * 1) David Letterman  jumped when David Letterman announced his future retirement.
 * 2) Leonard Nimoy jumped when Nimoy died, also jumped during first week of March 2015.
 * 3) William Shatner jumped when Leonard Nimoy died. Also jumped in first 2 days of March 2015.
 * 4) The Daily Show jumped when Jon Stewart announced his retirement from hosting the show.
 * 5) Jon Stewart jumped he announced his retirement from hosting The Daily Show.
 * 6) Baltimore jumped during protests over treatment of Freddie Gray by Baltimore Police Dept.
 * 7) Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao hit nearly 424,000 views after the fight. Since 62.62% of the page's views were mobile, overall views are about 1.1 million.
 * 8) Floyd Mayweather Jr. jumped after his fight against Manny Pacquiao. Views of his page hit 547,000 the day after the fight, and since 62.66% of his views were from mobile services, his total page views that day were possibly over 1.45 million.
 * 9) Manny Pacquiao was viewed about 425,000 times the day after the fight. Since 61.83% of views were mobile, overall views were around 1.1 million.
 * 10) Robin Williams, jumped on May 8th, possibly due to this article and accompanying video: Robin Williams Impressionist Returns With More Celebrity Impersonations.
 * 11) Great Britain, jumped on May 8, 2015, the day that election results were announced there.
 * 12) David Cameron, jumped on May 8, 2015, the day that election results were announced in Great Britain.
 * 13) Bruce Jenner and Caitlyn Jenner  after her sex change. Counting mobile views, Bruce's page likely hit 1 million on June 2nd.
 * 14) Christopher Lee after his death.
 * 15) SS Pendleton jumped in July 2015, on release of video trailer for movie which describes rescue of crew of SS Pendleton'' in 1952.
 * 16) The Beatles, jumped July 7 due to this article: Beatles' Ringo Starr to mark 75th birthday at Capitol Records in Hollywood.
 * 17) Ghostbusters jumped July 10, 2015 due to coverage of filming of new Ghostbusters film.
 * 18) Elvis Presley, jumped July 14, 2015, possibly due to this article: Elvis Presley shook up the Springfield Civic Center 40 years ago.
 * 19) Ida B. Wells, jumped July 16, 2015, when Ida Wells was the subject of a Google Doodle.
 * 20) New Horizons probe, jumped when this probe reached the planet Pluto.
 * 21) Pluto, jumped when the New Horizons probe reached the planet Pluto.
 * 22) India–Bangladesh enclaves jumped when an agreement took effect that ended or resolved the enclaves.
 * 23) November 2015 Paris Attacks the day after the attacks. It hit 1 million when mobile views are accounted for.

2016 items

 * 1) Pokémon Go  in July 2016 at the peak of the game's popularity.
 * 2) Mike Pence, jumped July 2016, upon Donald Trump's selection of Pence as running mate for 2016 election.
 * 3) Doctor Strange jumped July 2016, in part due to new upcoming movie on this comic-book character.
 * 4) Desmond Doss, jumped July 31- August 1, 2016, on release of first trailer for Hacksaw Ridge, a movie depicting Doss's achievements as a conscientious objector in World War II.
 * 5) Steve Biko . Jumped when Biko was commemorated by a special Google Doodle depiction on December 18, 2016.
 * 6) Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria jumped due to comparisons with the Assassination of Andrei Karlov.
 * 7) Ray Kroc jumped upon biographical film The Founder which depicts Kroc's story when he founded McDonald's.

2017 items

 * 1) DUP jumped in June when a British hung parliament was announced and it was thereafter revealed that the Democratic Unionist Party from Northern Ireland had agreed to support the Conservative minority government.
 * 2) Plimpton 322 Jumped in August 2017 when new scientific findings revealed new important insights into the mathematics shown on this ancient Babylonian tablet.

2018 items

 * Underwater Demolition Assault Unit . Jumped in July 2018, due to coverage of this unit as part of news coverage of the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue.

2019 items

 * Frank Sheeran, more than 1m hits over two days, jumped in December 2019, due to depiction in The Irishman.
 * Jimmy Hoffa, starting November 27, 2019 and continuing for several days, due to The Irishman.

2021 items

 * Frank Kameny, jumped in June 2021, when article was featured in a Google Doodle.

Google Doodles
Many Google Doodles have caused more than a million hits. For example, Dian Fossey had 2.4m views January 16, 2014 (Google Doodle) on her 82nd birth anniversary. She died in 1985. Her 81st and 83rd anniversary only had 2260 and 1123 views. Hits which are clearly caused mainly by a Google Doodle are usually not listed elsewhere on this page, although sometimes they may be, such as in the case of this example.

Additional examples

 * ''(partially sorted chronologically)


 * Israeli legislative election, 2009 . Traffic jumped around day of actual election.
 * Turing test . Traffic jumped when "Turing test" was mentioned in the comic strip Dilbert.
 * Edward M. Liddy . Article on Ed Liddy, CEO of AIG; jumped on day of congressional testimony.
 * Chuck Grassley . Jumped when U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley made statements re Edward Liddy.
 * American International Group jumped when AIG was mentioned in news reports.
 * Graphene when graphene was mentioned in a news article which was shown in some various links at Yahoo news website.
 * Chupacabra jumped when video footage of possible specimen attracted widespread media attention and public interest in Sept. 2009.
 * Mount Bosavi jumped when dramatic new zoological findings received major media attention.
 * John Verbanac jumped from 2–3 hits per day to 143 on October 22 when his relationship with Luke Ravenstahl became an issue in the Pittsburgh mayoral election, 2009.
 * Elena Kagan page when she was announced as new nominee for US Supreme Court.
 * Galaxy 15, when the satellite had a malfunction.
 * Lost (TV series), at time of series finale.
 * Abby Sunderland jumped when reports of her problems at sea made worldwide headlines.
 * Toonami ; jumped after having it as a one night showing for April Fool's Day.
 * Engine order telegraph : gradually increase for the week prior to, and with several times the ordinary traffic on, the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.
 * Star Trek: The Motion Picture ; jumped when the news broke in 2013 that Voyager 1 had officially entered interstellar space (news related to the plot of the 1979 film; no other Star Trek films saw similar jumps)
 * Deep Heat (heat rub), jumped in February 2013 after One Direction's Harry Styles mentioned it in a tweet; this spike in attention subsequently led to the article's merger into that of its manufacturer Mentholatum.

Pages statistics

 * Pageviews Analysis for Wikimedia projects from 1 August 2015 to the present
 * Wiki-Watch, primarily for assessing the reliability of a Wikipedia article, but also charts the total number of pageviews for a specific time period
 * The Wikistics, page view statistics for Wikimedia projects before September 2009 (has gaps)

News articles re Wikipedia traffic

 * Wikipedia's Year-End List Shows What the Internet Needed to Know in 2019. Alyse Stanley, December 27, 2019, Gizmodo.