As the presidential election frenzy enters its post-election lull, let’s take a moment to visit one of the most controversial periods in election history and the impact that it had on October’s media publications ranking.

The recent election period saw a general awakening of politically heavy news sites; the first signs of change were visible already few months prior to the election. Take the publication fivethirtyeight.com, which was ranked at a mere 106 in June 2016. Over the last few months, it jumped 93 positions, reaching 13th place in October and was flanked by prominent domains like washingtonpost.com and businessinsider.com.

Keyword Contenders

Another indication of fivethirtyeight.com’s progress can be seen in the graphbelow which displays the top sites contending for the keyword “election” from May 2016 – Oct. 2016. Fivethirtyeight.com showed the highest increase in its share of the search term, sparring against cnn.com, nytimes.com, bbc.com and the washingtonpost.com.

Reds vs Blues

A look at some of the shifts in ranking for conservative vs. liberal slanted sites shows a shift from both ends of the political spectrum. Liberal oriented publications like the nytimes.com moved up a notch, from 10th to 9thposition. Following election week, it added 41,000 new subscriptions across its print and digital platforms (the largest subscription increase since 2011), which may move it further up the ladder in the near future. Politico.com (up 5 spots), slate.com (up 13 spots) and the dailykos.com (up 28 spots) all made positive shifts in their respective rankings.

Right-wing publications like Forbes’ realclearpolitics.com ranks at 22nd (up 24 spots) proved to be ahead of traditional news sites such as cbsnews.com and bloomberg.com. Also of interest is how breitbart.com, (up 2 spots to 28th) will develop its position, given that its Executive Chairman, Stephen Bannon was recently appointed as Trump’s Chief Strategist to the White House.

Last but not least, infowars.com, known for its acclaimed host and conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones made an extraordinary leap of 31 spots advancing to 84thin October’s ranking.

Based on October’s rankings, it seems that publications that have aligned themselves with a political affiliation have gained the most in terms of traffic, page views and overall ranking. Take a look at our top 100 US publications and see for yourself:

___
US Media Publications Ranking October 2016 – Similarweb Blog