25 years of Rochdale Online

Photo: jchizhe - stock.adobe.com

Happy 25th birthday Rochdale Online

The Rochdale Online website – one of the oldest and most successful so-called ‘hyperlocal’ websites in the country – turns 25-years-old today (28 June 2023).

From its inception in 1998, Rochdale Online, now based in Rochdale town centre and whose staff all live locally, has strived to serve the Rochdale borough community (Heywood, Middleton, Pennines and Rochdale) by providing an authoritative source of local news and information, and by promoting local businesses, groups and organisations.

In doing so, Rochdale Online has grown to become a very important resource for the local community, recognised throughout the borough.

The site is visited by over 176,000 unique users per month, on average, this year (source: Google Analytics) up from an average of 58,000 unique visitors a month in 2011.

To celebrate the 25th anniversary, we are offering 25% off our promoted year-long business listings to new customers until the end of July. This applies to Premium Listings and Enhanced Listings within the business section of the site and means you can get a promoted listing for as little as £123.75 +VAT for the year.

Long-retired features of the site include the former Rochdale Online Forum (aka Message Board), which ran between 1999 and 2012, and had 6,000 members at the height of its popularity, and the 2001 Rochdale Online Maps.

Predating Google Maps by four years, the map feature was exactly that: online searchable road maps of the Rochdale borough. The maps and associated database were finally retired in 2008.

In addition to the main news pages – including dedicated sports and business sections – the website also contains a wealth of local information, including jobs, properties, and a constantly updated local business directory.

There’s also an elections page, with results for local and general elections, dating back to 2005.

Since the beginning, Rochdale Online has provided free advertising in a very popular ‘Events Diary’, with an average of over 16,000 page views per month, whilst local community groups, voluntary organisations and charities are all offered a free website hosted and maintained by Rochdale Online.