Hillary Clinton overtook Barack Obama in May, John Edwards and Rudy Giuliani held steady and Ron Paul rocketed from fifth place to first. That's according to Hitwise data showing the ebb and flow of traffic to the official sites of the Democratic and Republican presidential primary candidates.
In a custom report created for ClickZ News, Hitwise measured traffic market share of the candidate sites. The measurement firm found traffic to Democratic candidate sites was top heavy, favoring Clinton's, Obama's and Edwards's sites. HillaryClinton.com garnered nearly a third of visits among Democratic candidate sites in May. BarackObama.com attracted almost 28 percent, and JohnEdwards.com drew 23 percent of visitors to Dem campaign sites last month.
Visits to Republican candidate sites were spread a bit more evenly among the sites tracked. RonPaul2008.com drew a 27 percent share of visitors to Republican candidate sites in May. MittRomney.com attracted almost 21 percent of visits last month, while JohnMccain.com brought in almost 13 percent.
Hitwise defines market share of visits within a site category as the percentage of traffic to a particular site based on its sample of 10 million U.S. Web users.
| Democratic Candidates' Site Traffic Market Share and Rankings | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May Market Share Ranking | Campaign | Web site | Traffic Market Share | April Market Share Ranking | March Market Share Ranking |
| 1. | Hillary Clinton For President | www.hillaryclinton.com | 32.15% | 2 | 2 |
| 2. | Barack Obama | www.barackobama.com | 27.64% | 1 | 1 |
| 3. | John Edwards For President | www.johnedwards.com | 23.07% | 3 | 3 |
| 4. | Bill Richardson for President Exploratory Committee | www.richardsonforpresident.com | 6.11% | 6 | 4 |
| 5. | Dennis Kucinich 2008 | www.kucinich.us | 4.11% | 4 | 8 |
| 6. | Gravel 2008 | www.gravel2008.us | 2.94% | 7 | 7 |
| 7. | Joe Biden for President | www.joebiden.com | 2.90% | 5 | 5 |
| 8. | Chris Dodd for President | www.chrisdodd.com | 1.09% | 8 | 6 |
| Source: Hitwise, 2007 | |||||
| Republican Candidates' Site Traffic Market Share and Rankings | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May Market Share Ranking | Campaign | Web site | Traffic Market Share | April Market Share Ranking | March Market Share Ranking |
| 1. | Ron Paul 2008 | www.ronpaul2008.com | 27.35% | 5 | 8 |
| 2. | Mitt Romney | www.mittromney.com | 20.87% | 3 | 3 |
| 3. | John McCain 2008 | www.johnmccain.com | 12.62% | 2 | 2 |
| 4. | Rudy Giuliani Presidential Exploratory Committee | www.joinrudy2008.com | 11.00% | 4 | 1 |
| 5. | Draft Fred Thompson For President 08 | www.fred08.com | 8.19% | 6 | 6 |
| 6. | Team Tancredo | www.teamtancredo.com | 6.63% | 1 | 4 |
| 7. | Duncan Hunter for President | www.gohunter08.com | 5.93% | 7 | 5 |
| 8. | Explore Huckabee | www.explorehuckabee.com | 3.84% | 8 | 7 |
| 9. | Brownback for President | www.brownback.com | 2.54% | 10 | 9 |
| 10. | Tommy 2008 | www.tommy2008.com | 0.71% | 9 | 10 |
| 11. | Jim Gilmore 08 | www.jimgilmore08.com | 0.32% | 11 | 11 |
| Source: Hitwise, 2007 | |||||
| Top Sites Driving Traffic to www.HillaryClinton.com in May 2007 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web site | URL | Upstream Share | ||
| www.google.com | 19.47% | |||
| Yahoo! Mail | mail.yahoo.com | 13.21% | ||
| MySpace | www.myspace.com | 8.59% | ||
| YouTube | www.youtube.com | 4.60% | ||
| Yahoo! Search | search.yahoo.com | 4.23% | ||
| Source: Hitwise, 2007 | ||||
| Top Sites Driving Traffic to www.RonPaul2008.com in May 2007 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web site | URL | Upstream Share | ||
| www.google.com | 18.33% | |||
| Yahoo! Search | search.yahoo.com | 6.06% | ||
| Yahoo! Mail | mail.yahoo.com | 4.32% | ||
| MySpace | www.myspace.com | 4.09% | ||
| Ron Paul Daily Update | www.ronpaul2008.typepad.com | 3.32% | ||
| Source: Hitwise, 2007 | ||||
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Kate Kaye was Managing Editor at ClickZ News until October 2012. As a daily reporter and editor for the original news source, she covered beats including digital political campaigns and government regulation of the online ad industry. Kate is the author of Campaign '08: A Turning Point for Digital Media, the only book focused on the paid digital media efforts of the 2008 presidential campaigns. Kate created ClickZ's Politics & Advocacy section, and is the primary contributor to the one-of-a-kind section. She began reporting on the interactive ad industry in 1999 and has spoken at several events and in interviews for television, radio, print, and digital media outlets. You can follow Kate on Twitter at @LowbrowKate.
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