"We can't say the summers are slow anymore," Executive Editor/Interactive Meredith Artley wrote in a memo.

Latimes.com, the website for the Los Angeles Times, surpassed its previous record for page views (120 million), with an astonishing 127 million page views for July, and a record-breaking 19 million unique users.

The traffic surge can be attributed both to the conscious effort to focus resources online, including new features like the launch of a science-fiction blog and stories like "Big Burn" - a five part series covering growing California wildfires; and to current events in July, including a 5.4-magnitue earthquake that hit Southern California on July 29, that likely drove traffic to the site.

"We were on track to break that May record by a few million page views, and then the earthquake happened, pushing us even further ahead," said Artley.

Artley also added the paper is becoming more adept in using technology and the web to its advantage. "Latimes.com keeps getting better at SEO (search engine optimization), which means our stories are ranking higher in Google and other search engines. We are also performing better on sites like Digg.com. All that adds up to more exposure and more readership than ever before."

Source: Editor & Publisher