Traffic to Most Major Conservative Websites Sags in May 

Unique Visitors at DonaldJTrump.com Drop 72%

June 29,  2021, New York, NY – For the fourth straight month, year-over-year (YOY) unique visitors to the top conservative websites decreased, according to TheRighting’s exclusive analysis of May 2021 mobile and desktop traffic based on Comscore data.  TheRighting found that only two of the top 20 conservative websites grew YOY audiences in May. Foxnews.com led all right-wing websites with 78,867,000 unique visitors, but was down 28% from May 2020.

The website of the former president, DonaldJTrump.com, saw a steep YOY decline in unique visitors of 72%, despite the May 4 launch of the blog “From the Desk of Donald J. Trump,” which folded a month later.  “I expected to see much stronger traffic considering the fanfare which greeted the debut of the blog on Mr. Trump’s site,” said Howard Polskin, President and Curator, TheRighting.  “His drooping audience reflects the overall softness in the news environment, but it may also indicate a rising level of Trump fatigue. Either he’s losing his grip on the country or his website is a poor channel for him to convey his messages.”

Only two right-wing websites in TheRighting top 20 chart saw traffic gains in May. Conservative-friendly social media sites also experienced sharp YOY traffic improvements led by Parler, which was up 405%.    

Leaders and Losers Among Top 20 Conservative Websites for May 2021

(by unique visitor percentage increase/decrease from year ago)

Leaders

·      Daily Wire (+36%)

·      Bongino.com  (+2%)

·      Newsmax (0%)

·      Hannity.com (0%)

Losers

·      CNS News (-79%)

·      Washington Times (-77%)

·      PJ Media (-76%)

Most large mainstream news brands also saw declines in YOY traffic.  Unique visitors fell at  The New York Times brand (-37%), Washingtonpost.com (-25%) and CNN.com (-20%).  

Parler Talk

The number of unique visitors for three conservative-friendly social media sites for May 2021 are as follows:

·      Parler (1,727,000; +405% vs year ago)

·      Rumble (8,119,000; +147% vs year ago)

·      MeWe (2,314,000; +96% vs year ago)

Each month, TheRighting examines Comscore data on dozens of prominent conservative websites that post original content.  TheRighting ranks the top 20 conservative websites on the basis of unique visitors and also provides data on whether unique visitors have increased or decreased year over year.  That information is posted on the Metrics section of TheRighting’s website. 

TheRighting also publishes a listing of Who’s Who in Conservative Media as well as an  A-Z Guide to Right-Wing Media and an A-Z Guide to Liberal Media, and updates them regularly.  Additionally, TheRighting has created a Top 20 News Podcast Chart and the Trump Book Tracker, which monitors all Trump-related books that will be published in 2021 and  beyond. 

Source: Comscore Media Metrix® Multi-Platform, Custom-defined list, including, but not limited to Foxnews.com, Breitbart.com, DailyCaller.com, WashingtonExaminer.com, WesternJournal.com, Washingtontimes.com, Total Digital Audience, May 2021, U.S.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article and chart incorrectly stated that Foxnews.com had 13,654,000 unique visitors in May 2021 resulting in an audience decline of 41%.

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