HuffPo and Politico Lead Polical Sites Traffic; What About The Day After?
This story was written by Rafat Ali.
HuffingtonPost.com and Politico.com, two sites that didn't exist in the last presidential election, lead the list of most-trafficked sites in the standalone political sites and blogs category, according to numbers released by *Comscore*. HuffPo has 4.5 million visitors in September, up 472 percent versus year ago, while Politico.com attracted 2.4 million visitors (up 344 percent) and DrudgeReport.com saw 2.1 million visitors (up 70 percent).
The full chart, below:
Selected Stand-Alone* Political Blogs & News Sites September 2008 vs. September 2007 Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) Media Metrix Total Unique Visitors (000) Sep-2007 Sep-2008 % Change Total Internet: Total Audience 181,858 189,468 4 HUFFINGTONPOST.COM 792 4,545 474 POLITICO.COM 532 2,362 344 DRUDGEREPORT.COM 1,215 2,059 70 REALCLEARPOLITICS.COM 192 1,129 489 FREEREPUBLIC.COM 1,022 987 -3 Capitol Advantage 794 959 21 DAILYKOS.COM 192 923 381 TOWNHALL.COM 407 884 117 NEWSBUSTERS.ORG 113 732 547 WORLDNETDAILY.COM 411 636 55 TALKINGPOINTSMEMO.COM 32 458 1,321 MICHELLEMALKIN.COM 103 247 140 REDSTATE.COM 38 235 514 CROOKSANDLIARS.COM 122 218 79 RAWSTORY.COM 219 212 -3 POLLSTER.COM N/A 194 N/A MEDIAMATTERS.ORG 145 178 23 FIVETHIRTYEIGHT.COM N/A 169 N/A CQPOLITICS.COM N/A 139 N/A AMERICABLOG.COM N/A 104 N/A
And while these numbers are in and of itself interesting, the biggest question for any of them is what happens the day after? More true of sites like HuffPo and Politico....while HuffPo thinks that its expansion into non-political content will help, for Politico, it is about getting into print (or at least that was the stated strategy last month...the media world has changed for the worse since then, for sure), and launching an ad network. Even though online political advertising is not holding up, amidst the downturn. For 2008, only about $17.7 million is expected to flow online from political advertisers, including candidate campaigns, PACs, 527 groups and party committees. And even then nearly 60 percent of Obama's online ad dollars went towards Google (NSDQ: GOOG) as of Augustmore than $3 million, reports ClickZ.
Both of them, some others down the list, would probably need to raise money pretty soon, if they don't have a war chest already.
By Rafat Ali