Newsmax.com continues to see extraordinary growth in web traffic as many conservative news and opinion sites saw significant declines.
Newsmax last month saw a 126% growth in unique visitors to its website and mobile app compared to February 2020, according to Comscore data reported by TheRighting blog.
It was the fourth consecutive month Newsmax registered a triple-digit year-over-year traffic gain.
FoxNews.com, meanwhile, lost 25 million visitors in February for a 24% yearly drop – the largest slide of any conservative website.
Sixty percent of the top conservative websites posted year-over-year declines last month, according to TheRighting’s analysis based on Comscore data released Tuesday.
Conservative websites that joined Newsmax in seeing triple-digit year-over-year growth included Bongino.com (+155%) and The Daily Wire (+139%).
Three conservative social media sites also enjoyed increases in traffic — Rumble (+6%, 9,979,000 users), Parler (Feb. 2020 unavailable, 4,323,000), and MeWe (+367%, 3,457,000).
Twelve of the top 20 conservative websites showed serious decreases in traffic.
National Review saw its website traffic plummet, dropping by 46% since a year ago.
Since the election, National Review has become a fierce critic of President Trump.
The publication’s chief legal analyst, Andy McCarthy, backed the second impeachment of Trump claiming he had engaged in "dereliction of duty."
"A softer news environment in February featuring a less confrontational president impacted the traffic to conservative websites," said Howard Polskin, TheRighting’s president and chief curator. "The year 2020 was one of the most consequential since 1969, which resulted in consumers flocking to news outlets."
Of the three liberal media news websites tracked by TheRighting, only CNN.com (+7%) posted a year-over-year gain in visitors. The New York Times (-16%) and Washingtonpost.com (-7%) each dropped.
Newsmax TV also has seen growth.
Recent Nielsen data showed that Total Day viewership from the 4th quarter of 2020, covering the full period of the election, was up an incredible 800% from the 3rd quarter of 2020.
The Nielsen data also showed Newsmax’s TV audience has continued to grow with average Total Day viewership up 24% so far in the 1st quarter of 2021 compared to last year’s 4th quarter.