The Daily Signal and NewsBusters Post Healthy Traffic Gains in December While Most Conservative Websites Falter
January 31, 2022, New York, NY – The Daily Signal and NewsBusters both registered year-over-year (YOY) double-digit increases in unique visitors bucking a downward trend for almost all conservative websites since March 2021. The Daily Signal saw its YOY unique visitors balloon by 66%, while NewsBusters increased its YOY audience by 57%, according to TheRighting’s exclusive analysis of December 2021 mobile and desktop traffic based on Comscore data.
Altogether only four conservative websites in TheRighting’s top 20 chart grew their audience, while more than half suffered double-digit losses in YOY traffic.
Foxnews.com remained the most popular conservative website with more than 79 million unique visitors in December. However, traffic sagged 10%, making it 13 consecutive months with declining YOY audience.
Unique visitors to DonaldJTrump.com, the website of the former president where he issues proclamations, provides links to stories disparaging his opponents, solicits funds, and sells Trump-branded merchandise, dropped 69%. Since TheRighting began tracking traffic to the Trump website in April 2021, the outlet has never gained audience.
Leaders and Losers Among Top 20 Conservative News Websites for December 2021
(by unique visitor percentage increase/decrease from year ago)
Leaders
· Daily Signal (+66%)
· NewsBusters (+57%)
· Daily Wire (+17%)
Losers
· Bongino.com (-74%)
· CNS News (-66%)
· Washington Examiner (-56%)
YOY unique visitors fell at the three mainstream news outlets TheRighting follows: Washingtonpost.com (-23%), The New York Times brand (-2%) and CNN.com (-1%).
Parler Talk
Three conservative-friendly social media networks TheRighting follows all suffered significant audience declines. Parler had the largest drop, making it the seventh straight month of decreasing unique visitors. While there are not YOY numbers for Gettr, the social media platform founded by former Trump aide Jason Miller, it added 400,000 more unique visitors from November to December. And Gettr now has more unique visitors than Parler. Here are the December traffic numbers:
· Rumble (8,221,000; -25% vs year ago)
· Mewe (1,244,000; -60% vs year ago)
· Gettr (1,027,000; year-ago data NA)
· Parler (792,000; -91% 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, December 2021, U.S.
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One reason the Daily Signal gained more audience than any other conservative website in December was due to the Dec. 13 publication of the commentary What I’ve Learned Rescuing My Daughter From Her Transgender Fantasy. It was among the Daily Signal’s most popular stories of the year. NewsBusters also experienced a huge traffic increase last month primarily because visitors to the media-news-oriented site were seeking analysis and insights about the December exits of Brian Williams and Chris Cuomo, two anchors who have long grated on conservatives.