Way to go, Drudge! Still driving them crazy after all these years, mate.

Drudge's site reloads itself after about 15 second so, to use how many times his front pg. has loaded as a sign of how many ppl visit the site is false.

How does the Milwaukee Journal rate higher than the Washington Post? I question these numbers.

Beth, congrats on Drudge front page link!

Lydia, since you obviously don't know how this works, perhaps you should save your energy. You're taking up too much space & oxygen already.

Thanks, Kyle! (On a oompletely separate note, let's keep the comments relatively friendly.)

Now, I have to say, I'm a fan of Drudge, but Drudge celebrating the number-one slot with Nielsen is like a radio listener who uses a Demon Dialer celebrating a call-in contest win. Is there pride in puffery?

The Milwaukee Journal ??? Your kidding right ! They give more papers away free at Brewers games than they sell. Its not called "The Milwaukee Urinal" locally without reason.

Dick -- it's surprising, but think of all the Packers fans who go to that site. Especially when Brett Favre retired....

This data cannot be accurate.The Huffington Post would top Drudge.

I don't see how Drudge's auto-refresh can possibly *NOT* influence these numbers. He does a javascript auto-refresh that forces a page reload, so the browser never pulls it from cache. There's no way to tell whether that reload is coming from a user. If you have DrudgeReport.com open in a browser window and leave your house, it'll look like you're refreshing the page every three minutes for the entire day. That means that according to Nielsen's definition, your unoccupied computer will qualify as one new "session" every half hour throughout the day. It beggars belief that Nielsen doesn't figure that into their rankings.

ps: I guess I misread the definition; their "session" requires 30 minutes of downtime to end a "session". So think about that -- the *average* Drudge user has 19 sessions per day. That would mean opening the homepage, closing it entirely -- because the auto-refresh would keep the "session" active by requesting a page every three minutes -- and reopening it again 31 minutes later, and doing this for 10 straight hours. That's the *average* user. I'm sorry, I find this tough to believe.

pps: ah, got it. here's the other part of the "session" definition: "AOL proprietary online service page requests." All AOL users come through a small number of proxy servers, so you can't count unique visitors simply by IP address. A large percentage of Drudge traffic comes through AOL, so if you count every AOL page request as a "session" -- and I'm hoping Nielsen doesn't do this, but it fits that stated explanation -- it makes sense that Drudge's session-per-visitor numbers are so out of whack.

it isn't out of whack! I go to drudge at least 10-15 seperate times a day. He's always putting new stuff up while other just leave there same old junk up all day!!!

Second jeff. This is my third time to this site today because of drudge. I'm addicted to the internet...

SkippyFlipjack, has obviosly never heard of tracking by mac address a network card specific and unchangeable number assinged to every network card. Oh and yes it is possible to tell count by the mac address access instead of ip address, not to mention the ip address would not change just because a page was reloaded. And yes I do go to drudge 15 to 16 times a day. I would almost say that drudge is most likely the reason the other ones are so high

BOB, it'd be nice if you didn't talk down to me. And if you do, you should try to be correct. Web servers record the information the browser gives them, and the browser doesn't have access to the MAC address. Yes, there are plenty of ways of getting unique visitor counts, even with AOL users. But it appears that Nielsen is not doing this; otherwise why would they make an exception for AOL addresses, and why would one AOL page request constitute a "session"?

Why do people like skippyflipjack who know nothing about how the internet works try to disprove things they don't understand just because the facts don't fit their beliefs! Sheeeezzzz! roflmao

I'm all ears, Networktech.

The MAC address is included in every page access. It has ALWAYS been part of the TCP/IP protocol used for internet browsing, as well as local network intranet routing. It is Layer 2 of the OSI Model. Networktech obviously understands networking. Believe him/her or remain ignorant. The MAC Address never changes and it can be used to determine "unique" hits. No matter where you surf, the website you view can indentify your computer.

"WHY" WOULD I EVER GO TO A FRIGIN' SLANTED NEWSPAPER TO FIND OUT WHAT IS GOING ON????? DRUDGE IS THE VERY, VERY, VERY BEST AND HAS MORE INTEGRITY,INTELLIGENCE, PA-ZAAAAAAZ, AND UP TO THE MINUTE ACCURATE NEWS THAN ANY OLD MEDIA DRIVEN SOB SITE.LOVE YA DRUDGE. SHOW'EM HOW IT'S DONE. WE TRUST YOU. WE LOVE YOU. YOU ARE THE BEST. REMEMBER THE BLUE-STAINED DRESS? NO ONE HAD THE GUTS TO REPORT IT. THANK GOD FOR DRUDGE. THE OLD MEDIA WITH IT'S "EDITORS" AND "AGENDA", ot's "slant" and spin" ARE NOT TO BE BELIEVED ANY MORE. jezzika

"WHY" WOULD I EVER GO TO A FRIGIN' SLANTED NEWSPAPER TO FIND OUT WHAT IS GOING ON????? DRUDGE IS THE VERY, VERY, VERY BEST AND HAS MORE INTEGRITY,INTELLIGENCE, PA-ZAAAAAAZ, AND UP TO THE MINUTE ACCURATE NEWS THAN ANY OLD MEDIA DRIVEN SOB SITE.LOVE YA DRUDGE. SHOW'EM HOW IT'S DONE. WE TRUST YOU. WE LOVE YOU. YOU ARE THE BEST. REMEMBER THE BLUE-STAINED DRESS? NO ONE HAD THE GUTS TO REPORT IT. THANK GOD FOR DRUDGE. THE OLD MEDIA WITH IT'S "EDITORS" AND "AGENDA", ot's "slant" and spin" ARE NOT TO BE BELIEVED ANY MORE. jezzika

bbinsf: MAC addresses are not part of TCP/IP (they're used by many other higher-layer protocols) but you're right, a MAC address comes in with each web request -- the MAC address of the router one hop away. Not the MAC address of the user viewing the website. I guess there are ways that you could suss that information out, but I doubt Nielsen's service is doing anything very elaborate. The issue is not whether Nielsen *could* get true unique visitor and session stats, it's whether they *are*. Sincerely, SkippyNetworkTech (Now complete with a more authoritative-sounding name!)

We miss your radio show, Drudge.

Looks like the Drudge Sayanims are out in force and their activism is really really silly tonight(meaning obvious)..Note the AOL comments by subscriber above, for they are the truth..The beat goes on..on..on and Nielsen basking in Miami sunshine,just sits back and counts the comments while Matt gets the drinks..Pathetic and paid for.

By the way, I realized that I've been assuming those were daily numbers derived from monthly totals, but I think they're monthly numbers, ie an average of 19 sessions per person per month. This makes more sense because not everyone obsessively refreshes their news sources throughout the day like me and others here. I still think Drudge is over-represented, but you can ignore some of my reasoning up there ^^^ :)

Ok -- I was out most of tonight, but here's what we've got from Nielsen: "Nielsen Online confirms Web page refreshes do not affect our sessions per person metric."

Every time a story is linked by Drudge, some elitist on the linked site writes how the bitter morons who read Drudge are now polluting the sanctity of their beloved MSM site with comments. It is almost as if they think identifying someone as a Drudge reader is somehow an insult. Leftists ARE elitists and they look at regular people as untouchables.

It is the continue timed-refresh on drudge that permits more hits. Check it out.

I am not sure what part of "unique" confuses you left leaning guys. Auto-refreshes have nothing to do with it, nor does multiple visits in a single browser session. It is insane that NIELSEN itself is quoted right on this very page by NAA.org (thanks Beth) as saying that refreshes do not affect the numbers, yet 13 hours later we still have libs ignoring the fact so they can go with their kook theories. Folks, Drudge had close to 600 MILLION front page hits last month, so if the page refreshes were affecting his numbers, he'd have a lot more than a 19.1 rating. But I guess to the crowd who still thinks fire can't melt steel, numbers are irrelevant.

I'm left (almost) speechless by the misguided posts of Kevin and others. Why is this about ideology? I don't like Matt Drudge very much -- he never issues retractions when he's wrong -- but his site is one of 5 or 6 I visit every day, and I have no cause to trash the site. I just wonder about this study's methodology. This has nothing to do *visitors*, so don't get your undies in a bunch -- it has to do with *visits per person*. It's not about how popular the site is, it's about how the site's users use the site. Since they're using the latter metric as the sort order, it makes sense to try to make sure they're accurately gauging that behavior. Drudge has more than twice the "sessions per person" of the next site on the list, and his is the one that does auto page refreshes. Maybe you don't find that worth looking into; I do. Sorry but "NIELSEN SAID IT SO IT'S TRUE" isn't exactly a valid argument when it comes to hashing out these tech details. Beth, you've been very nice; hopefully you'll get a little more specific information out of Nielsen. Mainly, how they can tell that a person is checking the site multiple times in a day if the site is refreshing itself all that time.

Oh, and Kevin? Speaking of number crunching: Drudge had 3.4 million vistors last month who had an average of 19 "sessions" on the site. Since he only has (basically) one page on the site, that equals around 65 million real visits. so your 600 million hits is a joke -- it's the stat that *is* affected by the page refresh script.

The only reason I'm on this site is because of drudge - so kudos.

jezzika what in the world are you talking about? youre still going to those "slanted' newspapers, youre just following drudges link there. the stained dress was ten years ago and it was probably the last time drudge did his own reporting. if there are no news web-sites there is no drudge. sorry.

I'm refreshing drudge right now to see if this story has bumped yet. If you aren't a drudge reader, then there is no possible way for you to comprehend why there is a 19:1 ratio or why there is so many comments here from drudge readers. I believe the complaints about drudge commenters 'ruining' walls is evidence enough. the page changes multiple times throughout the day. It's the difference between watching sportscenter and sports reviews on some other channel. One gives you everything you could possibly want (or not) from multiple sources quickly and in a format for anyone, while the other one caters. Weak metaphor but you get the point.

OK. I take it back about the puffery. I should have read the fine print about Nielsen's claim that auto-refresh doesn't affect these results. What's left is my annoyance with the auto-refresh. Drudge, I love you, but your java vexes me to no end.

That's interesting -- if you want to place ads on Drudge, they can contain no nudity (makes sense) and no bodily functions (thank goodness). He also refuses ads "containing differently-abled people". Um... huh?? This is from Drudge's ad package courtesy of Intermarkets, Inc, who manages his ad sales. How is a disabled person in an ad problematic? I don't get it.

After looking what the other sites where there is no way they are visited at all. Not familiar with websites like ZWIRE or Daily Koz or even theatlantic.com//// WND and NewScientist, myway.com have more visitors There is even a simple spelling error here Breibart.com should be spelled breitbart.com I bet Monavie.com has more visitors compared to Zwire.