• by Ray Schultz , August 29, 2022

The big winners among conservative websites in July were Epoch Times and Washington Examiner. 

Epoch Times experienced 40% growth in unique visitors YoY, and the Examiner 25%, its first increase since the presidential election month of November 2020, according to analysis by TheRighting of July 2022 mobile and desktop traffic based on Comscore data.

The Examiner, described as a  moderate conservative news outlet, drew 5.5 million unique visitors, and was the third most-visited conservative news website for July 2022. 

Of course, Fox News remained the elephant in the room, with 76.2 million unique visitors. But its traffic fell by 9%, its fifth straight month of losses. 

“Most right-wing news outlets lost audience in July 2022, which was not surprising since it was a relatively slow news month,” states Howard Polskin, president and chief curator, TheRighting. 

But Polskin adds, “I expect traffic to balloon in August because of intense audience interest in the developments related to the FBI’s search of Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and the subsequent political and legal fallout.” 

Polskin wryly notes, ““The former president may be a threat to democracy, but he is catnip for audience traffic especially when he’s coloring outside the lines.”        

Here are the winners and losers in terms of growth: 

Winners

• Epoch Times (+40%)
• Washington Examiner (+25%) 
• National Review (+14%) 

Losers

• Townhall (-61%)
• RedState (-44%)
• Western Journal (-42%)

Among mainstream news brands, The New York Times generated a YOY increase in unique visitors of 3%. But The Washington Post suffered a 19% decline. 

TheRighting, a media company that aggregates articles from right-wing media outlets, analyzed social traffic for the first time in July. Here are the winners among conservative-friendly social media sites:  

• Rumble (7,107,000; -12% vs year ago)  
• Truth Social  (2,545,000; year-ago data NA) 
• MeWe (1,137,000; -27% vs year ago) 
• Gettr (784,000; -59% vs year ago)
• Parler (496,000; -43% vs year ago) 

Trump’s Truth Social website, which launched in February 2022, attracted 2.5 million unique visitors in July, up about 600,000 from June 2022. But there are no YoY numbers.

“Look for a surge in August unique visitors to Truth Social since it has become Trump’s primary megaphone especially for pushing back against the Justice Department’s justifications for the Mar-a-Lago search,” Polskin concludes.