Conservative Websites See YOY Traffic Declines

Seventeen of the top 20 right wing news websites experienced year-over-year (YOY) traffic declines in November according to TheRighting’s exclusive analysis of November 2022 mobile and desktop traffic based on Comscore data. Traffic for most of the top right wing news websites has been soft all year, according to Comscore data analyzed by TheRighting.

Foxnews.com continued to lose YOY audience for the ninth straight month. However, YOY was only off by 1%, and the site attracted 89,506,000 unique visitors more than ten times the next most-trafficked site (Epoch Times at 7,557,000).

“The ongoing softness in November traffic to conservative websites is a major surprise,” said Howard Polskin, President and Chief Curator, TheRighting. “I anticipated a strong uptick because of the surprising results of the November midterm elections and Mr. Trump’s announcement about his 2024 presidential aspirations. The data suggests that right wing audiences may be suffering from either indifference or news fatigue.”

Winners and Losers Among Top 20 Conservative News Websites for November 2022 (by unique visitor percentage increase/decrease from year ago)

Winners

• Washington Examiner (+19%)
• Daily Signal (+9%)
• Epoch Times (+5%)

Losers

• Infowars (-70%)
• Townhall (-68%)
• The Federalist (-61%)

All three mainstream news websites that TheRighting follows posted audience gains. For the tenth month in a row, The New York Times brand posted an increase in YOY traffic. The site generated 106,570,000 unique visitors, up 25% from November 2021 when it drew 85,264,000 unique visitors. YOY traffic to CNN.com rose 4%, as the site tallied 145,552,000 unique visitors, the most of any news website that TheRighting tracks. The Washington Post had a modest 1% gain, rising to 65,541,000 unique visitors in November 2022, up from 64,746,000 in November 2021.

The Truth About Truth Social Traffic

Month-to-month traffic Donald Trump’s Truth Social website, which launched in February 2022, increased 36% in November to 3,857,000 unique visitors, halting a two month drop. The previous month Mr. Trump’s social media site had 2,853,000 unique visitors. YOY comparison will not be available until February 2023.

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

• Rumble (6,587,000; -26% vs year ago)
• Truth Social (3,857,000; year-ago data NA)
• MeWe (998,000; -21% vs year ago)
• Gettr (857,000; +36% vs year ago)
• Parler (139,000; -81% 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, November 2022, U.S.