October Traffic Slips at Most Right-Wing News Websites

Trump’s Truth Social Declines for Second Consecutive Month

November 28,  2022, New York, NY – Traffic slid at major right-wing news websites in October continuing a downward trend that began in June. According to TheRighting’s exclusive analysis of October 2022 mobile and desktop traffic based on Comscore data, 18 conservatives news websites in TheRighting’s top 20 experienced year-over-year (YOY) declines in unique visitors.   For the fourth consecutive month, the Epoch Times and Washington Examiner led all conservative news websites in audience gains, posting double-digit increases.   

Foxnews.com continued to lose YOY audience for the eighth straight month.  It was the third month in a row of declines exceeding 20%.  It generated 73,755,00 unique visitors for October, almost ten times more than the next most-trafficked site (Epoch Times). 

“Traffic remained soft in October across most right-wing news websites as well as mainstream brands,”  said Howard Polskin, President and Chief Curator, TheRighting. “There were few major news events to galvanize audiences and drive them to websites for updates and analysis.  I anticipate a rise in traffic next month for all news websites because of the surprising results of the November midterm elections and Donald Trump’s announcement that he’s running in the 2024 presidential election.”

Winners and Losers Among Top 20 Conservative News Websites for October 2022

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

Winners

·      Washington Examiner (+29%)

·      Epoch Times (+13%)

Losers

·      CNS News (-79%)

·      Daily Signal (-76%)

·      RedState (-71%)

For the ninth month in a row, The New York Times brand posted an increase in YOY traffic.  The site generated 85,735,000 unique visitors, up 4% from October 2021.  Two other mainstream news brands TheRighting tracks each month experienced declining traffic.  CNN.com fell 16% from 132,687,000 unique visitors in October 2021 to 111,875,000 in October 2022.  The Washington Post dipped 5%, declining to 63,080,000 from 66,326,000 in October 2021. 

The Truth About Truth Social Traffic

Month-to-month traffic Donald Trump’s Truth Social website, which launched in February 2022,  decreased for the second consecutive month. Traffic peaked in August with 4,024,000 unique visitors, but has since dropped to 3,375,000 (September 2022) and 2,853,000 (October 2022). YOY comparison will not be available until February 2023. 

Here are the October 2022 unique visitors for the five conservative-friendly social media platforms TheRighting follows:

·      Rumble (6,591,000; -28% vs year ago)

·      Truth Social  (2,853,000; year-ago data NA)

·      MeWe (1,245,000; -24% vs year ago)

·      Parler (404,000; -65% vs year ago)

·      Gettr (294,000, -61% 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. 

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, October 2022, U.S.

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