What's Happening to Conservative Websites?

vanity | 3-7-07 | Bob J

[Bob J]

I have diligently watched the rise in size and influence of conservative websites, including Free Republic, over the last 7-8 years. I have been shocked and concerned over the drop in traffic at the most popular ones over the last year or so. There was good growth up until 2006 but since then there has been a steady downtrend that would crash any other market.

Anyone have any ideas as to what is happening? I'm out of explanations. The deficiencies in alexa.com are noted, but even if the numbers aren't accurate you're still comparing off numbers to off numbers so the decline is consistent.

[jokar]

Absolutely one of the # 1 reasons

[Guenevere]

Very strange....I just read your post and noted the tagline...(mine is similar)

..and when I reread my post, realized my tagline is missing?????

How in the world could the tagline be missing, when I didn't erase it???

[wtc911]

Botton line is that to anyone not sharing our ideology,

---------------------------------------------------------

You do not share our ideology, oh self-described 'hopeless' liberal.

[carolinalivin]

Thanx, I hope we don't issue benefits by seniority, : )

[Cold Heat]

Once the liberals succeeded in getting us to fight amongst ourselves, instead of against them, things changed.

Yup!

And it is accelerating.....

[Guenevere]

?

[Liberty Valance]

Not enough cheese!

[janereinheimer]

If not sooner.

[jpl]

FR has become more chatty as time goes by.

Recently, Free Republic seems to have become obsessed with little more than the "horse race". Not a day goes by here without multiple threads about the '08 election.

Me personally, there's nothing I'm less interested in right now than the '08 election, and I think a lot of people feel that way as well.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Are the Leftists sites showing the same thing or are they reverse mirror images i.e. are they picking up?

[spectre]

Sometimes the tagline disappears when we post a reply and hit the "Tagline" space by mistake?

But..I didn't steal your tagline, LOL!!!

sw

[justshutupandtakeit]

Have people been told one time too many by some breast-beating Neanderthal that they are not really "conservative" and believe it? So they say "well if I ain't a conservative maybe I should look elsewhere."

[staytrue]

Hunter looks good

Hunter is a 3rd tier candidate. If you did not despise a guilliani presidency, you would agree with me.

The Hunter fan club is about "anyone but mccain, guilliani and the mormon"

[Guenevere]

lol....you mean I did it?...:)

I knew it wasn't you....thought there were some gremlins in my machine :))

[starbase]

Not true, it depends on what information you are looking at. Let me use the thermometer example. You got a good one that reads 70 degrees duringthe day than drops to 65 degrees at night. Then you got bad one that is off by 10 degrees. It may read 60 degrees and drop to 55 on the same night as the good one, but they both accurately recorded the 5 degrees drop.

But that's a loaded example. A thermometer, unless it is truly wacky, is still made of mercury which must go up or down when heated or cooled. It may not be very accurate, but it will follow that trend every time.

But traffic-measuring tools like Alexa, that depend solely on the behavior of those who have it installed on their browser, could very well move in the opposite direction of a given trend. If the small subset of people with Alexa log off when a big rush of conventional users logs on, Alexa will say traffic is down when, in fact, it's up. Alexa could also say traffic is up when it's down, or that it's up when it's up, and also that it's down when it's down.

In short, I just don't think these measurements are dependable enough to even look at seriously. Any time we start to rely on all our data being 'equally flawed', then it's time to chuck the data out and find another way to measure our hypothesis, IMHO.

[Tatze]

Ask the mods. I know a number of good conservatives that were banned.

[Hoodlum91]

We have a winner!

I'll add that the bannings have a ripple effect as well. Other posters get frustrated and leave.

[staytrue]

the first poster to not add anything of substance (information, analysis, humor) to a post gets a 24 hour timeout.

This site needs more reading of the article and comments, more thinking about what you have read and less posting.

While not perfect, I think a posting limit would do just fine.

[Millee]

I'd support a "bring back the banned" day.

[Tatze]

It's a nice thought, but I don't see it happening.