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Midgen
 Post subject: Drudge - referral king
PostPosted: Tue May 10, 2011 1:03 am 
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http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/201 ... ebook.html

pbs.org wrote:
The Drudge Report outranks social media when it comes to driving news traffic to top Web sites, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. In a comprehensive examination of online traffic data provided by Nielsen, Pew found that only "three sites ever account for more than 10 percent of the traffic to any [major news Web site]: Google (search and news combined), the Drudge Report and Yahoo (search and news combined)."

The chart below plots referral traffic to top news brands from the Drudge Report, Facebook and Twitter.

Pew researchers analyzed the traffic behind 25 of the Internet's biggest news Web sites. Their report reveals new insights into online behavior among news consumers and compares the data from traditional online venues with new trends emerging in social media. The report provides a valuable profile of types of online news audiences and their behaviors -- data that is highly-prized by publishers. Among the report's chief findings:

News Web sites' audiences are mostly made up of "casual users" -- visitors who only visit a few times a month, and only spend minutes on a site. For instance, USAToday's casual user base makes up 85% of its audience.
Many sites also attract a smaller group of loyal users who visit more than 10 times per month.
Google is the primary driver of traffic online, but social media, specifically Facebook, is growing fast. However, Twitter "barely registers as a referring source."
Despite the meteoric growth of social media in recent years, the report found that Drudge Report still outperforms Facebook and Twitter when it comes to driving audiences to top news Web sites:

...the Drudge Report's influence cuts across both traditional organizations such as ABC News to more tabloid style outlets such as the New York Post. What's more, Drudge Report drove more links than Facebook or Twitter on all the sites to which it drove traffic.

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Kaffis Mark V
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PostPosted: Tue May 10, 2011 7:14 am 
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Sure, for major news sites.

Let's see Slashdot and Penny Arcade on there. There's a reason "slashdotted" and "wanged" are verbs in the internet lexicon. I'd love to see how they stack up when it comes to a given front-page link generating traffic to a site.

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Lex Luthor
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PostPosted: Tue May 10, 2011 8:11 am 
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This is no surprise. The Drudgereport has been one of my favorite sites for several years now. I check it way more than Facebook.

People who don't like it because it has a "conservative slant" are just missing out in my opinion. I'm not very conservative but I still highly regard it.
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Diamondeye
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PostPosted: Tue May 10, 2011 9:01 am 
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What's the significance of this article? I don't really understand what they're trying to point out.

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Kaffis Mark V
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PostPosted: Tue May 10, 2011 9:11 am 
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Social media, while very popular, doesn't seem to be a significant source of news circulation?

Drudge is super-important? Take what you will away from it, the data is just data.

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Diamondeye
PostPosted: Tue May 10, 2011 9:17 am 
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News circulation in what way? Who is being referred where by what? I'm not clear on what they are saying is happening.

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Hopwin
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PostPosted: Tue May 10, 2011 9:29 am 
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So Drudge doesn't have any "news content" itself, it links to other sites. Same with Facebook. This measures how many people end up at CNN (or MSNBC, etc) from Drudge versus Facebook.

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Lex Luthor
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PostPosted: Tue May 10, 2011 9:37 am 
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The Drudgereport sometimes has small reports of its own, but it's rare.
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Midgen
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PostPosted: Tue May 10, 2011 12:56 pm 
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There really isn't anything terribly significant.

I just thought it was interesting that a site with no real content of it's own, no 'users', no visual attraction to speak of, and just a very simple layout, can be so.... hrmm. what's the word? powerful? influential? I was surprised, considering how popular facebook, twitter, etc...are, that they don't rank higher in overall referrals (if not for a specific story, just in general).

He obviously makes money from advertising with so much traffic, but I wonder if there is anything else going on? What criteria does he use to determine where he's going to link to?

When a big story breaks.. the OBL story for example, there are going to be a lot of possible sources to link to. I wonder how he decides?

Drudge Lobbyists ? :p

Edit:
Clarification for DE,

Basically what this says is that more people get referred (that is, click on links) to the sites listed from Drudge than any other place. For example, according to the graph, 11% of all of foxnews.com's readers (who click in from another site), are directed to that site from a link on drudgereport.com.
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Kaffis Mark V
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PostPosted: Tue May 10, 2011 1:05 pm 
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In a way, what he chooses to give time to *is* his content. He's a digest, so he attracts people based on cultivating an audience that appreciates his selections as a means of increasing the signal to noise ratio. This is much the same reason why I don't bother following gaming or entertainment news really closely online -- the concatenation of users on The Glade does a good job of ensuring that stuff that belongs on my radar comes to my attention here. At least, does a good enough job that the time investment to go above and beyond doesn't yield proportionate rewards for me.

As for Facebook and Twitter's popularity -- yes, but as I said, their popularity doesn't leverage itself as a news sharing network. This just shows that sharing news articles aren't how the majority of Facebookers and Tweeters spend their time.

(I do have to wonder, though, whether link doctoring tools like bit.ly throw the referral numbers off; I imagine this would have a serious effect on, say, Twitter in particular)

What it also demonstrates (to me, at least) is that devoting a lot of effort and UI space to integrating the "share this article on Twitter" probably isn't a good focus for these news sites.

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Midgen
 Post subject: Re:
PostPosted: Tue May 10, 2011 1:07 pm 
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Kaffis Mark V wrote:
(I do have to wonder, though, whether link doctoring tools like bit.ly throw the referral numbers off; I imagine this would have a serious effect on, say, Twitter in particular)



Good point. I hadn't considered this. I wonder if this is taken into consideration?
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Kaffis Mark V
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PostPosted: Tue May 10, 2011 1:15 pm 
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No idea. Hence why I'm wondering. ;)

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"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades
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Lex Luthor
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PostPosted: Tue May 10, 2011 1:45 pm 
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I'm sure they were smart enough to realize this and factor it in. They must have seen lots of referrals from sites like bit.ly and sorted them accordingly.
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Müs
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PostPosted: Wed May 11, 2011 8:14 am 
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So Drudge was the first information agglomeration site?

In other news, water is wet.

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Midgen
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PostPosted: Wed May 11, 2011 1:14 pm 
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what?
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