Huffington Post Finally Surpasses DrudgeReport in Traffic

by phil on Friday Mar 7, 2008 10:16 PM

Looks like the left has finally found its answer to the Drudge Report. According to statistics from compete.com, in the month of February, The Huffington Post overtook Drudge Report in traffic.

Site comparison and history after the jump.

The Huffington Post is a both a progressive news site and an aggregator. It's venture-funded and has an enormous list of contributors who are in Arianna Huffington's extended network.

The Drudge Report, while it still looks like a one-man operation that simply links to catchy news stories, more often than not those links are to Drudge's friend Andrew Breitbart's news site. Ironically enough, Breitbart was the primary developer of The Huffington Post.

If you compare both sites, they seem very similar now:

They both have a high density of strong, catchy headlines that drive clicks. Compare this with other news sites, where maybe a few headlines are click-worthy, the rest are just fluff.

Matt Drudge started as a gift shop cashier at CBS Studios and he would overhear all the gossip, and then post it online onto newsgroups. He also scooped advance copies of TV ratings from the trash bin. He then created his Drudge Report, which back then looked startling similar to his trademark sparse look and feel that he has today.

I've been hearing a lot more about the Huffington Post from ordinary people. While the net community has long known about this site, it seems the man-on-the-street is now equally aware of Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, and now the Huffington Post.