Hitwise: Obama and Paul Top Traffic Charts in August, Thompson Shows Strength

According to Hitwise, Thompson's site traffic ranked third among all candidates from both parties.

ClickZ_Campaign08_katefinal.jpgBarack Obama and Ron Paul continued to rule the site traffic rankings among their respective Democratic and Republican presidential candidate counterparts at the end of August. However, one newcomer could upset the apple cart, at least for Republicans: none other than Fred Thompson, the just-declared candidate with the folksy celebrity appeal. According to Hitwise, Thompson’s site traffic ranked third among all candidates from both parties.

Interest in candidates as indicated by visitors to their official campaign sites continued to fluctuate during the week ending September 1. While most maintained traffic market share, give or take a point or two, since the end of July, some hopefuls from both sides of the aisle dropped or rose more significantly.

In the Dem camp, Senator John Edwards moved from third to second place and gained eight points in traffic share, while Mike Gravel lost over seven points and fell four notches in the rankings. When ClickZ last reported Gravel’s traffic standings, he’d experienced a leap of over 6.5 points between the third and the final week of July, following the CNN/YouTube Democratic Debate, moving from the seventh to the fourth spot in the Democratic candidate rankings.

As for the right-leaning contenders, Mike Huckabee boosted his share over six points since the week ending July 28, inching up two spots in the rankings among Republicans. Rudy Giuliani, on the other hand, dropped nearly six points in that time, falling two notches in the site traffic rankings among fellow Republicans.

Hitwise did not provide data on finally-declared candidate Fred Thompson’s site traffic as it ranked among fellow party members; however, the traffic measurement firm did gauge traffic to his ImWithFred.com site among all declared presidential candidates. The former Senator from Tennessee ranked third out of all candidates, garnering 13.5 percent of traffic share. Ranked along with all candidates, Obama’s site took the top spot with nearly 19 percent traffic share and Congressman Ron Paul grabbed nearly 15 percent in the second place slot.

Google was the top referral site for both RonPaul2008.com and BarackObama.com according to Hitwise, which also measured Yahoo Mail and Yahoo News as sites driving traffic to both candidates’ sites. Meetup and MSN Search also delivered traffic to Paul’s site, while Obama’s site brought in visitors through Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo’s main site.

Democratic Candidates’ Site Traffic
Market Share and Rankings
Market Share Ranking Week Ending 9.1.07 Campaign Web site Traffic Market Share
1. Barack Obama www.barackobama.com 36.5%
2. John Edwards For President www.johnedwards.com 22.33%
3. Hillary Clinton For President www.hillaryclinton.com 22%
4. Joe Biden for President www.joebiden.com 6.84%
5. Dennis Kucinich 2008 www.kucinich.us 6.17%
6. Bill Richardson for President Exploratory Committee www.richardsonforpresident.com 3.81%
7. Chris Dodd for President www.chrisdodd.com 1.49%
8. Gravel 2008 www.gravel2008.us 0.87%
Source: Hitwise, 2007

Republican Candidates’ Site Traffic
Market Share and Rankings
Market Share Ranking Week Ending 9.1.07 Campaign Web site Market Share
1. Ron Paul 2008 www.ronpaul2008.com 42.56%
2. Mitt Romney www.mittromney.com 17.17%
3. Mike Huckabee www.mikehuckabee.com 14.59%
4. John McCain 2008 www.johnmccain.com 12.49%
5. Rudy Giuliani Presidential Exploratory Committee www.joinrudy2008.com 7.6%
6. Duncan Hunter for President www.gohunter08.com 3.15%
7. Brownback for President www.brownback.com 2.43%
Source: Hitwise, 2007

Top Sites Driving Traffic
to www.BarackObama.com
Week Ending 9.1.07
Web site URL Upstream Share
Google www.google.com 18.99%
Yahoo Mail mail.yahoo.com 12.98%
Windows Live Hotmail hotmail.com 5.32%
Yahoo News news.yahoo.com 3.78%
Yahoo www.yahoo.com 3.38%
Source: Hitwise, 2007

Top Sites Driving Traffic
to www.RonPaul2008.com
Week Ending 9.1.07
Web site URL Upstream Share
Google www.google.com 37%
Yahoo Mail mail.yahoo.com 5.57%
Yahoo! News news.yahoo.com 3.55%
Ron Paul Meetup ronpaul.meetup.com 2.93%
MSN Search search.msn.com 2.74%
Source: Hitwise, 2007

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