August 25, 2011 – About one-third of the 19 websites with a Marina City connection saw more traffic this year from February to August. Traffic was up at seven sites, down at eight, and unknown at four. However, with the total number of websites now estimated at more than 266 million, most of the Marina City sites are in the top ten percent.

skyscrapercity.com, operated by Marina City resident Jan Klerks, already with a towering lead, had a six percent increase in traffic, according to the web analysis company Alexa.

loopnorth.com jumped 21 percent to take second place. Despite losing 32 percent, bin36.com moved up to third place. Architecture writer Lynn Becker’s site also lost traffic but moved up to fourth place.

The biggest increase in traffic, according to Alexa, happened at mascontext.com, edited by Iker Gil, an architect who lives at Marina City. The site, which had an Alexa rank of more than 22 million in May 2010, now has an Alexa rank of less than three million and moves into the top five Marina City sites.

(Above) A photo, titled “Soho” from MAS Context, a quarterly journal that “addresses issues that affect the urban context.”

The new site for Crimson Lounge appears to have lost the most traffic since February. But the site for Marina Towers Condominium Association picked up enough traffic to show up on the Alexa radar and is now ranked tenth of the 19 Marina City sites.

Alexa bases traffic estimates on data collected from users of its toolbar and other sources over three months. The top three websites in general, says Alexa, are now Google, Facebook, and YouTube.

There was not enough traffic to rank vpfalk.net, landmarkmarinacitynow.org, and marinacitychicagogiftshopgallery.com. Because they are sub-domains, chicago.dickslastresort.com and chicago.transwestern.net could not be ranked.