Simple site huge reach
By Techgirl

If you logon to drudgereport.com, you will see a Web 1.0 website which looks like what all websites looked like a decade ago.  The site is devoid of all bells and whistles. Google Ads help drive the website.

Despite its simple appearance, Drudgereport is one of the most influential sites in the world. Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism has crunched the numbers to report on the massive influence of the Drudgereport

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Before Google or Facebook, an early major driver of Internet traffic was the Drudge Report. The site, founded by Matt Drudge, first gained national recognition during the Clinton presidency for posting insider information about the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Two decades later, while Drudge is still a small scale operation, it remains, according to the data, an influential driver of traffic to top news sites. The Drudge Report ranked as a driver of traffic to all but six of the top sites studied. And, more striking, it ranked second or third in more than half (12), outpacing Facebook. 

In some cases, Drudgereport.com is an extremely important traffic driver. While Facebook never drove more than 8% of traffic to any one site, for instance, Drudgereport provided more than 30% of traffic to mailonline.co.uk (the British newspaper site the Daily Mail), 19% of the traffic to the NYPost.com, 15% to Washingtonpost.com and 11% to Boston.com and FoxNews.com.

In other words, 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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Who would have thought that a Web 1.0 website could still attract so many readers who are spoilt for choice on the internet?

Techgoss note:  Techgirl is a senior Tech journalist who reports on the IT, KPO and KPO Sectors for a leading media house.  In her spare time, she dabbles in satire in her blog techgirltalk.blogspot.com.  Techgirl has been ejected from Twitter for satirizing an Indian Minister.  Her satire blog has links to her Times of India interview detailing her being kicked out of Twitter, and then being invited back.