How do Campaign 2008 Websites Match up Against Webkinz?
A couple of days ago I updated our rankings of 2008 presidential candidate website traffic, but since then I’ve had the feeling that I missed something. To remind you, we measure traffic to the presidential candidates’ websites based on rankings from Alexa, a website that collects information on site visits for websites across the internet by users of the Alexa toolbar, then uses a combination of visitors and page views to a website to calculate a page rank. The most visited site in the whole internet would have a rank of 1, and the least visited website would have a rank in the millions.
This morning I figured out what had been nagging at me — the website traffic rankings really don’t have a baseline against which they can be compared. There’s a whole set of interests held by Americans which are expressed in their website visits and which have nothing to do with politics.
So here are the presidential candidate website rankings, remixed with some websites of other interest included as placemarkers of Americans’ attention. In order from most to least popular, and with Alexa ranking noted, they are:
worldofwarcraft.com:388
nfl.com:501
netflix.com:565
verizonwireless.com:1,288
webkinz.com:3,024
icanhascheezburger.com:3,179
Ron Paul: 3,991
Barack Obama: 19,430
britneyspears.com:19,513
artcyclopedia.com:29,186
Hillary Clinton: 35,643
hummer.com:37,964
Mike Huckabee: 44,868
Dennis Kucinich: 51,908
pepsi.com:53,466
John Edwards: 62,942
Mitt Romney: 69,721
crest.com:89,313
Rudolph Giuliani: 102,056
Fred Thompson: 103,037
John McCain: 129,434
Mike Gravel: 163,963
fritolay.com:165,245
Bill Richardson: 191,576
Joseph Biden: 192,955
Christopher Dodd: 210,798
hampsterdance.com:264,078
Duncan Hunter: 314,945
preparationh.com:473,111
Alan Keyes: 576,766
Tom Tancredo: 692,956
Kelcey Wilson: 2,013,323
Joe Schriner: 2,290,913
hamburgerhelper.com:3,211,572
kat swift: 8,864,113
Ron Paul almost is as popular as Webkinz, the website where kids (and I imagine a surprising number of adults) can log on to play with their virtual stuffed animals. Hillary Clinton is of slightly more interest than the Hummer. Mike Gravel grabs comparable traffic to a website with information on Frito Lay brand snack foods. Alan Keyes and Tom Tancredo are outdone by Preparation H. And none of the candidates can compete with professional football.
This is the state of American interest in presidential politics.
You can’t be surprised with the state of our nation (ie. “we’re” puttin’ up with this crappy government, gas and heating oil prices, the sorry state of the environment, the economy, and the value of our currency).Nobody seems to care very much, so don’t expect the election to do much for changing anything. People will, by and large, vote for the most popular candidate, or the person who looks most like them, talks a good game, advertises most, etc. Very few will read the platforms of these candidates and even fewer will do any research into their pasts.
And Kat Swift isn’t even up to the snuff of Hamburger Helper.
What a great meal-o.
Proves the point that the Tancredo ad is ultimately irrelevant. More people will see the Giuliani ad attacking Hillary’s ties to Elliot Spitzer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2Sc_E1llpY
Gravel kucinich paul nader perot carter [conyers?rangel?] united for truth elicit fear smear blacklist.
Honesty compassion intelligence guts.
No more extortion blackmail bribery division.
Divided we fall.
Babble babble babble.