Posted on 01/27/2003 7:15:23 PM PST by HighWheeler
Freerepublic.com is Gaining
An analysis was conducted January 27, 2003, of the relative rankings of some of the larger political sites on the World Wide Web of the Internet.
Alexa services was used to obtain the relative rankings of some of the larger political sites.
Review these graphs taken January 27, 2003 from the Alexa services site. The graphs show the relative rankings of freerepublic.com against salon.com, democraticunderground.com, and bartcop.com, and finally versus rushlimbaugh.com.
Freerepublic.com is a conservative website that boasts over 90,000 registered users, and is funded solely by donations from the users and "lurkers" to the website.
Salon.com is a publicly held company that was once listed on the NASDAQ, but has since been de-listed to the OTC pink sheet. Salon is funded by subscriptions to its website, but a brief view of their historical stock price shows it was almost $15 per share in 1999, but has since steadily dropped, and is now trading at just $.05 a share today. Salon.com is also bleeding money profusely, and as the graph below shows it is also losing its ranking on the Internet.
Freerepublic’s ranking January 27, 2003 was 1251, meaning that only 1250 sites on the entire Internet had more hits than freerepublic.com today. However, Freerepublic’s ranking has grown by 363 in a very short time, in only the last 3 months. Salon.com, however, has dropped ranking during the same period, and today their ranking stands at 1619 with a 3 month average ranking of 751. Freerepublic.com has a 3 month average ranking of 1803.
The decline of Salon.com is very evident here, but it only tells part of the story. Salon.com is bleeding cash at a high rate, and Salon is suffering declining revenue.
Freerepublic.com vs. Democratunderground.com - a democrat centered, user supported site that also allows their users to post in a forum type format. A review of DU shows a very open forum, allowing (and perhaps encouraging) incredibly vulgar language. The users of Freerepublic.com are held to strict limits on vulgar language, and freerepublic’s posters generally have a sharp sense of humor and fun.
Freerepublic.com vs. Bartcop.com. Bartcop is another forum type site, that allows a high level of vulgar language and rather coarse discussions. The sharpness, clarity, logic, and humor at freerepublic.com really becomes evident when compared to bartcop or DU.
Freerepublic is not only gaining fast on their competition, they have soared lately compared to Rushlimaugh.com. Rush Limbaugh changed format in December to a mostly subscription site, and the number have hits to that site has dropped.
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Long held assumptions about political Internet sites seem to bolster the recent November, 2002 Republican victories in the House and Senate, and the popularity and high approval ratings of President Bush. It seems that those victories, and the Internet rankings, are showing that there seems to be a definite American shift to the right on the political spectrum. All these liberal interactive and subscription sites have been losing ranking, and losing at a definitive rate. But the simultaneous growth of freerepublic shows that it's not that political websites are losing ranking, but it's definitely the left leaning political sites that are suffering the heaviest losses of interest among web surfers. Perhaps the future may show a shift back to the left, but for now the conservatives are enjoying a powerful resurgence, and it looks to be getting stronger by the day. George Bush looks like he may be enjoying a long, strong ride for the next two years as long as this trend continues.
So the best rating is "1" meaning the top-ranked site. FR is now into the top 1,000 of all sites. Only Rush Limbaugh is above us, and having gone to subscription service, he may drop below us.
Does that help?
Congressman Billybob
Click for latest column for UPI, "Necessary Lies -- Iraq & N. Korea" (Now up on UPI wire, and FR.)
As the politician formerly known as Al Gore has said, my book, "to Restore Trust in America"
You're reading it upside down. Think of it as a Billboard chart, and you're Casey Kasem. The higher notch a site occupies, the more popular it is.
Yeah, it's been about four and a half years for me, so far.
They'll be writing books about you one day. 8~)
There's your problem. Civility is a dead giveaway.
Sticky? Is that anything like tacky?
--Boot Hill
If you're using Internet Explorer, I can help you:
1) Click on "Tools" and "Internet Options".
2) Click on "General".
3) At the top of that, you will see "Home Page".
4) In that field, erase whatever your current home page is.
5) Copy and paste this address in that field: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/browse
6)Click "Apply" and "OK".
That's all there is to it!
Bartcop is a complete joke, I think there's maybe 50 extremely angry, miserable, crotchety old liberals posting there. Occasionally some of them will come over here as disruptors. If you ever try to post there you'll be shut down before you even start. Occasionally they'll let a conservative in, but usually they'll gang up on him like a pack of hyenas. Some time ago they were more open, but conservatives would go in and usually make mince meat of their arguments. At this point they'd resort to vulgarities, and baiting remarks until the hapless conservative was forced to respond. Then they'd claim that they won the debate and that most freepers were too stupid to debate them. As time went on the discussions got more and more meaningless, so they shut themselves down and only let trusted members post. Now it's down to a handful of EXTREME leftists, generally patting each other on the back. Occasionally I'll peek in to see what they're discussing but by and large it's a waste of time.
You mean this isn't "the" internet??? There's something else out there? Ah Pat, I need to buy a clue! :)
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