The Drudge Report has moved ahead of the New York Times in online traffic and engagement for the first half of 2018, according to a newly released analysis by SimilarWeb.
SimilarWeb’s latest Media Publications ranking, which covers the first six months of 2018, shows Matt Drudge’s right-wing news aggregation website flopped places with the Times for No. 6 for top U.S. media publications online.
The rankings are based on a total of traffic, page views and unique views, according to SimilarWeb, though a video accompanying the rankings noted that the Times website had 249.3 million visits compared to 144.3 million visits for Drudge.
Similarly, SimilarWeb’s No. 1 site, MSN.com, has 70 million fewer visits than the new No. 2, espn.com; a rep for SimilarWeb did not respond to a request for comment.
CNN came in at No.3 with 396.6 million visits. And both Drudge and the New York Times finished ahead of Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post, which came in at N0. 9 with 177.9 million visits.
Since bursting onto the scene in 1998 after exposing the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal (and Newsweek’s decision to kill its own scoop), the Drudge Report has become one of the most trafficked sites in the country.
With just a fraction of the overhead costs of legacy media competitors, Drudge is currently the 41st most visited website, according to SimilarWeb, just above Hulu, which is 43rd.
Neither Drudge nor the Times responded to requests for comment.
Watch the full top 10 list in the video above.