YouTube Debate May Have Affected Candidate Site Traffic

Filed in archive Internet TV on August 8, 2007

The CNN/YouTube Debates are being discussed and it may have changed the traffic to sites of the official campaign sites of the Democratic Presidential candidates.

While Hillary Clinton is ahead in recent polls, according to Hitwise, Barack Obama held the lead in traffic for the weeks ending July 21 and July 28. His traffic market share, however, did fall 6 percentage points following the July 23 YouTube spectacular.

Clinton, who led the pack in May, did eclipse another fellow Senator, John Edwards, in the week ending July 28, as compared to the week ending July 21. Traffic to Edwards' site shrank 6 percentage points by the 28th, and Bill Richardson also lost his share in traffic over the two week span.

Lesser-known Dem Mike Gravel experienced a leap of over 6.5 points in the week following the debate, moving from the 7th to the 4th spot in the Democratic candidate rankings. Joe Biden and Chris Dodd also increased market share of traffic to their sites, as did Dennis Kucinich, who changed his official campaign site domain name from the more awkward www.kucinich.us to dennis4president.com.

Democratic Candidates' Site Traffic Market Share and Rankings Weeks Ending 7.21 and 7.28
Market Share Ranking Week Ending 7.28	Campaign	Web site	Market Share Week Ending 7.21	Market Share Week Ending 7.28
1.	Barack Obama	www.barackobama.com	47.51%	41.17%
2.	Hillary Clinton For President	www.hillaryclinton.com	19.53%	24.14%
3.	John Edwards For President	www.johnedwards.com	20.58%	14.37%
4.	Gravel 2008	www.gravel2008.us	1.50%	8.15%
5.	Joe Biden for President	www.joebiden.com	2.58%	4.52%
7.	Dennis Kucinich 2008	www.dennis4president.com	3.93%	4.15%
6.	Bill Richardson for President Exploratory Committee	www.richardsonforpresident.com	3.22%	2.04%
8.	Chris Dodd for President	www.chrisdodd.com	1.12%	1.46%
Source: Hitwise, 2007