Right Wing Blogs Up, Left Wing Blogs Down
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in BloggingIt has long been understood that the largest liberal blogs have generally produced more web traffic than the largest conservative blogs. But I have noticed a general trend over the past few months that I didn’t want to write about until the end of the year. After surveying the traffic stats of many major political blogs, I found that web traffic for several major liberal blogs either declined sharply or stayed the same while major conservative blogs saw a sharp increase in traffic.
He speculates that it may be the Long Tail effect, where readership is spreading out to smaller blogs. Personally, I think that’s unlikely because who’s going to trade more news for less? No, I think this means people are just reading liberal blogs a little less. Also, a lot of conservative blogs have recently relaunched with updated formats that are a lot more contemporary than their liberal counterparts…Hot Air and Michelle Malkin being the top two. Friendlier format usually translates into more readers.
So what about moderate blogs? Well, I can tell you that our traffic is definitely up this year, and the last six months have been much more than the first six. Some of this can be attributed to an election year, some of it is Ron Paul traffic and some of it is the fact that Google News really likes us. However, I don’t think people are really seeking out blogs as their go-to, first-in-the-morning news sources. We’re still a bit of an oddity, but as news organizations mix our content in with theirs, we’ll all collectively see an uptick in the number of readers.
In any event, food for thought.
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January 2nd, 2008 at 12:12 pm
Most of it is Ron the Ron Paul effect for Right wing Blogs.
January 2nd, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Although there are plenty who will argue against it, the simplest explanation is not that a bunch of liberal blog readers have ‘gone offline’ while a bunch of conservative blog readers have simultaneously ‘found the internet’.
It is more plausible that a slew of liberal blog readers caught the Ron Paul Liberty bug and simply switched their reading habits – and this is accounting for the traffic shift.
January 2nd, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I am a Liberal Democrat and am voting for Ron Paul . So what I think has happened is many Democrats have crossed over just as Mark Rushmore has stated. It is time to return to “We the people” not “We the corporations ”
I am fed up with all major news corporations blatently ignoring not only Ron Paul but anyone else running below the top 2 or 3 in each race and to top it off when Ron is listed in the top 3 they still pay no attention! . Wake up America ! I really hope he does well in Iowa and NH so taht they can not ignore the mass following behind him . Go Ron Go
January 2nd, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Well if that isn’t seeing the world through Paul-colored glasses, I don’t know what is….Conservative blogs are seeing an uptick because liberals are turning to Paul?
All I can say is….wow.
You want an explanation? The liberal blogosphere is just not energized. The Republican majority is no more, Bush is on his last legs and the left is just not as passionate about things as they were. Add on that there is a certain disenfranchisement going on as both Presidential frontrunners (Clinton/Obama ) are more centrist than hardcore left.
January 2nd, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Readership at Liberal Values has been up, but I’ve attributed that to being largely due to being a newer, smaller blog which is gradually building an audience. Maybe overall readership at liberal blogs is down because liberals see a chance at victory in the real world and have less need to spend as much time at blogs as when Republicans controlled everything.
I’m now wondering if there isn’t something to the long tail effect. Many of my links come from small blogs and I wonder, with the larger liberal blogs sometimes becoming too much of an echo chamber repeating the same stories and views, if there isn’t more of an audience for all of us smaller blogs which often do cover different material. It would be interesting to see if there is an overall increase in a liberal blogosphere beyond the largest and most well known A list blogs. More liberal readers might also be finding a niche which comes closer to their views or interests.
While I’m not sure if the the long tail explains this, I don’t agree with dismissing the idea by saying “who’s going to trade more news for less?” Several times I’ve reported on items which the bigger blogs didn’t discover until days later, and I’m sure this is true among other smaller blogs. Monitoring a selection of small blogs might be a better source of information than only reading the big blogs.
One factor which might throw off these calculations is the effect of RSS readers. While some weeks my readership might be up or down based upon direct hits, the number of subscribers to the RSS feeds has consistently gone up. Perhaps the decrease in circulation is only a consequence of more people subscribing to RSS feeds and this would need to be evaluated before really comparing liberal and conservative blogs.
January 2nd, 2008 at 3:13 pm
[...] Justin Gardner also gives his views on this topic. While I’m not sure if the the long tail explains this, I don’t agree his dismissal of the idea by asking “who’s going to trade more news for less?” Several times I’ve reported on items which the bigger blogs didn’t discover until days later, and I’m sure this is true among other smaller blogs. Monitoring a selection of small blogs might be a better source of information than only reading the big blogs. This is especially true the more the big blogs concentrate on the top headline material for which there are many other sources of information. [...]
January 2nd, 2008 at 3:24 pm
My traffic is up something fairly sharply over last year, more than the regular increase I’ve seen over prior yearas would suggest.
I think the methodology used by the chap to whom you linked is flawed. I don’t know whether his conclusion is correct but I don’t think you can reach his conclusion with any confidence using his method.
January 2nd, 2008 at 6:37 pm
[...] Andy claims he had a record year, and wonders why. Me too. At Donklephant, Justin Gardner says traffic is up, up, up, which he attributes in part to Ron Paul-related [...]