The Drudge Report is still the king of conservative aggregator websites, but its rivals are gaining ground.
Five right-tilting upstarts — Whatfinger News, Liberty Daily, Rantingly, NewsAmmo and Gab Trends — increased their average monthly traffic and engagement, as measured by average visit duration and average pages per visit, from September-October 2018 to 2019, according to SimilarWeb, which shared its data with The Washington Times.
At the same time, the marketing-intelligence company found traffic to the Drudge Report during that period declined by 15%. From July to October, Drudge dropped from 96 million total visits to 77 million, prompting recent headlines such as True Pundit’s “Drudge Bleeds Out as Conservatives Flee.”
The Drudge Report has stoked alarm on the right for appearing to pivot on its support for President Trump, increasingly linking to stories that are critical of the administration and to media websites that are accused of having an anti-Trump bias such as CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
The same cannot be said of Whatfinger, the largest of the Drudge rivals, which favors links to conservative news and opinion websites such as Fox News, Breitbart, Daily Signal, Daily Wire, Western Journal and WorldNet Daily.
Whatfinger grew by 40.8% year-over-year, increasing its traffic from 2.23 million to 3.2 million. The next largest site, the Liberty Daily, grew by 72% as its average monthly visits grew to 1.72 million, according to SimilarWeb.
The Liberty Daily makes no bones about its rivalry, cheekily billing itself as “The Conservative Alternative to the Drudge Report.”
B.J. Rudell, associate director of the Center for Political Leadership, Innovation and Service at Duke University, said the growth of Drudge rivals reflects a polarized climate in which news-seekers “want to read what they already believe.”
“Trump’s approval numbers haven’t changed much in the past year,” Mr. Rudell said. “But Drudge’s editorializing of Trump has. So it’s reasonable to expect that some conservative Drudge readers — those who have stuck by Trump — would look elsewhere.”
At Rantingly, the banner headline Tuesday was “Bloomberg Hopelessly Compromises His Media Company” and linked to a New York Post article. The website grew year-over-year by 316%, increasing from 61,000 monthly visits to 255,000.
NewsAmmo, founded last year by a “few friends who live in Texas and Nebraska,” had the lowest traffic numbers but the highest growth, logging 12,700 monthly visits in September-October.
The youngest site, Gab Trends, part of the right-wing social-media network Gab, launched last month and has already built its average monthly traffic 67,400,” said SimilarWeb.
Drudge Report founder Matt Drudge did not respond to a request for comment.
He has yet to comment publicly on reports of his shift, but theories for the pivot include his friendship with anti-Trump conservative Ann Coulter or a possible loss of confidence in Mr. Trump’s ability to execute a conservative agenda.
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What is Drudge? I don’t know that site…..dead to me.
Yep, same here. I already had The Liberty Daily, Whatfinger, Epoch Times and Zero Hedge on my list — I’ll add NewsAmmo too.
I guess Matt has gone full ‘fudgepacker’ and turned to the dark side. His father is a democrat and I’m guessing his boyfriend is too.
Drudge is dead to me as well… used to go there everyday. Now not so much…
Will add NewsAmmo . Good Catch!
Matt was there when he was needed, but, likely some anti kaweer comment set off the volatile nature of the Buttholsters. They are not females, as much they act like them…
Drudge is still in my bookmarks… so I can smile as I pass over it daily.
Sounds like the Agency is payrolling him.
Why isn’t TBP one of the Big 5?
That’s easy..
It’s Nobody’s fault!
The ZeroHedge comment section has definitely deteriorated over the last few years. I recall reading Admin’s articles years ago on Sneaky Alpha before that site took a dim view of alternative economic viewpoints. Here, at least, the discussion stays on or near the topic at hand with a modicum of lucidity and a minimum of Prog idiocy.
You don’t want that. This place already gets too much pass-through troll traffic, thanks to zerohedge.
Too much anti-Jew and racist BS.
As a conservative I no longer go to Drudge!
Curious that Anonymous Conservative wasn’t mentioned.
T4C clued me in to that one, and it’s worth a scan.
Whatfinger now regularly posts links to Friday Fail and Sunday Funnies, as nkit & Miss T noted.
Indications are that Platform visits seem to have increased.
Would be cool if Admin or TMWNN had some traffic numbers to confirm.
Segue to the late year appeal to move the red meter higher, JQ.
Would be really good if some of the new visitors sent in a donation to keep the lights on, and the motor humming.
Every little bit helps, visitors.
I’ll commit to getting something to you in the month of December.
In the meantime, have a great Thanksgiving with your families.
It’s like planting an apple tree and being disappointed in it for not producing walnuts.
Leaving Drudge has zero to do with being anti-gay, but everything to do with being pro-USA.
Whatfinger is delivering about 10% of the daily visitors to TBP. They are growing rapidly.
And ‘Friday Fail’ is ALWAYS linked by Whatfinger.
It is clear Drudge has totally flipped from conservative to liberal. Have to believe that’s where the money is. Cannot think of another legit reason.
Maybe tribal loyalty? Just a thought.
The key to Drudge’s success was its stripped-down home page. Almost no graphics. Almost no pop-ups. You could drop in there for a second or two and get out without your computer or device all bogged down with spooling bullshit. The first few times I went to Whatfinger I felt like I’d been invaded by Romanian hackers. Just went there now and it looks better. No pop ups. The other key for Drudge was that it wasn’t all politics. It had the latest news of the weird: Floridians eating people’s faces off, shark attacks, babies eaten by alligators, crackheads fucking in McDonalds, etc. I’m not sure that Anonymous Conservative would have enough alligators and crackheads.
Matt Drudge turned to the chocolate speedway—and so did his politics. Simple.
Drudge turned totally anti-American, anti-Trump, and half of his pages became pay-per-view, what TRASH.
Or, everybody has a price.
Drudge is now sludge Only around still because of its history, not its current reporting
Drudge used to be my browser’s home page. Not anymore. I haven’t spent more than five minutes on Drudge in the past six months. Switched to Whatfinger and Breitbart. Good luck Matt but it’s over between us.
Don’t forget CitizenFreePress.com that is my go to Drudge replacement site now. Frequent updates into the night make it number one for me.
I use that as my homepage but visit the others as well.
KEEP AMERICA GREAT: President Trump FULL RALLY in Florida 11/26/19 (Video)
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2019/11/keep-america-great-president-trump-full.html
Citizens free Press
I’ve been visiting drudge since the 1990s. His links, alone, were a convenient tool. He used to stand for independent thought; he even linked to Iraqi news and North Korean news. I like the wide variety of articles, even now, but I hate the new left bias. It’s obvious he’s shifted. Here’s why:
Google bought him out. A Google affiliate, GraniteCubed, bought him and his dad’s site, Refdesk.com, whatever that is.
Since Google bought him, he’s gone full-retard anti-Trump/pro-establishment.
I’ll start visiting those other alternatives, now that I know of them.
Just now visited Liberty Daily and I can see I’m not the only one who liked Drudge’s style. Well done.
This is interesting. Did Drudge sell the company?
Liberty Daily is a Dollar Store version of Drudge. Same format plus lurid, clickbait headlines that often have misspelled words. Don’t contact them about inaccuracies, you’ll only get away with it once, maybe twice before the contact box no longer works for you. My favorite headline from LD was the story of Venezuelans eating garbage entitled “Venezuelans eat out of garbage Trump” instead of truck. Seemed a little too misspelled if you ask me.