Posted on 11/26/2023 6:15:47 PM PST by SeekAndFind
It's no secret that for years, the Drudge Report drove conservative (and often mainstream) media news cycles. If Drudge was talking about it, you could bet everyone from Rush Limbaugh to Fox News to PJ Media was also discussing it. In fact, there was a symbiotic relationship between Drudge's aggregated links and the pages of most conservative media outlets. Pretty much everyone was either getting story prompts from Drudge or sending him stories (often via AOL Instant Messenger) hoping he'd link them.
A Drudge link day was always a good one for a website. In the early days of PJ Media, before we had the sophisticated technology we do now, a link would crash our severs. Back then, our tech guys would get an email alert anytime we got a Drudge link so they could fortify our site against the barrage of people swarming to read our stories.
I remember my first Drudge link. I wrote something criticizing John Kasich, then my governor (and the son of a mailman). I was so excited that I printed out the page and hung it on my refrigerator. It ranked up there with my first mentions by Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin. Those were heady times.
For a few years, Drudge links made up a rather large percentage of traffic to our site. We'd get a link every day or two. Sometimes multiples. A link at the top of the page, "above the fold," could bring in hundreds of thousands of readers—and no small amount of revenue.
Many of you will recall that Drudge at first did everything he could to promote Donald Trump. Then something happened, some sort of falling-out that no one ever really got to the bottom of, and Matt Drudge turned on the president.
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
Yet FR still has a link to Drudge
“You should get out of the country now.”
But where to go? We have considered it, but it would be daunting considering we’re in our 70s.
Most wouldn’t, anyhow. Consider the conservatives who won’t even leave California because the extended family is there. Same thing, but on a different scale.
At the beginning I can’t recall if I found FR via Drudge or Lucianne.com. FR is the only one that remained constant.
I just checked. Tomorrow is my 23rd Anniversary here. Wow.
Congratulations!
I am about 23 years also. However, it’s impossible to check since over the years I have had so many handles. I can’t even recall my first one.
Drudge has moved on to full time Fudge Packing.
It was the link on Drudge that led me to FreeRepublic. Fortunately, that was in time to enjoy watching FreeRepublic dispatch Dan Rather. I kept Drudge as my homepage for many years but dropped it because of its annoying page refresh rate, back in the days of slow internet rates. I haven’t looked at the Drudge Report for many years, not at all since it turned goofy.
Its hard to believe. I remember my first post here. 25 years just kind of sneaks up on you. Happy anniversary :)
Granite Cubed, RefDesk, Margaret Otto. You’re welcome.
Matt’s motto was “I go where the stink is!”
Stopped going to the Drudge report when the warning popped up
Not Secure.
I’ve had the same handle since day one. Even remember the one I had on Lucianne in the olden days.
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