In between trying to start a war, Drudge finds time to mislead about his web site's popularity

Chris | InformationLiberation
Apr. 03, 2007

Recent visitors of the DrudgeReport.com will have found huge headlines about the recent conflict between the Brits an Iranians over blowing the whole subject in order to provocateur a war. Just today the top of Drudge read in huge red letters "BLAIR: WE'VE 48 HOURS TO SAVE SAILORS" creating the impression something significant will happen after 48 hours and everyone needs to start panicking. In reality the article is a non-story in which Blair just says, "The next 48 hours will be fairly critical." Gee Whiz, that really merits huge panicky red letters.

But in between these attempts to manufacture a war, Drudge has found time to BS about his website traffic to create the impression his website is becoming more popular.

At the front right of the DrudgeReport.com it reads:

FLASH: DRUDGE REPORT'S TOP MONTH IN ITS 12 YEAR HISTORY: MARCH 2007! MAIN PAGE LOADED 425,371,511 TIMES... TOPS MARCH 2006'S 287,443,312 ... MANY THANKS FOR YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT... THE LOVERS AND THE HATERS... AND THE ONES THAT STILL FIND THE INTERNET TOPS FOR NEWS AND INFORMATION!

To the internet novice, this would seem to be a good thing and a sign his traffic is increasing. In reality, it is just a ruse to give the impression his site is becoming more popular. If you read what he says carefully you will notice he says "main page LOADED 425,371,511 times". This is misleading because in order to artificially increase his page loads Drudge uses a reload script which reloads the page every minute or so. Hence, if someone just left their computer on DrudgeReport.com for an hour that would equate to 60 page loads.

If you look at his actual traffic graph from the internet's top ranking website, Alexa.com, you will see his traffic is actually tanking:

Obviously Drudge still gets a massive amount of traffic, but this is clearly an attempt to mislead his readers into believing his site (and the propaganda which goes with it) is becoming more popular, when in reality, like all the other Neo-Con propaganda organs, Limbaugh, etc., it is losing all its readership and is falling dramatically in popularity.

Good riddance.