At Polls And Online, Americans Joined Election Day Fray
Surging online activity on Election Day accompanied record voter turn-out at the polls, as voters flocked to current events and news sites to follow election results.
Web traffic to sites within the “Current Events and Global News” category was up 27% on Election Day, versus the previous Tuesday (Oct. 28), Nielsen Online reported Wednesday.
The candidates’ websites also drew healthy traffic on Election Day. Obama’s site had 1.2 million unique visitors on Nov. 4, while McCain’s site had 479,000 unique visitors.
| Rank (by Nov. 4 UA) |
Website | Unique Audience: Oct. 28, 2008 (in 000s) |
Unique Audience: Nov. 4, 2008 (in 000s) |
% Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | CNN Digital Network | 8,496 | 12,847 | 51% |
| 2 | MSNBC Digital Network | 5,959 | 12,114 | 103% |
| 3 | Yahoo! News | 7,649 | 11,440 | 50% |
| 4 | Fox News Digital Network | 3,937 | 5,745 | 46% |
| 5 | AOL News | 4,050 | 4,411 | 9% |
| 6 | NYTimes.com | 2,480 | 3,501 | 41% |
| 7 | Google News | 2,053 | 3,255 | 59% |
| 8 | Tribune Newspapers | 2,717 | 2,911 | 7% |
| 9 | washingtonpost.com | 1,086 | 2,309 | 113% |
| 10 | USATODAY.com | 1,326 | 2,009 | 52% |
| Source: Nielsen Online, Custom Analysis (October 28, 2008 and November 4, 2008). | ||||
Page views and time-per-person at current events and news websites also increased 103% and 61%, respectively, on Tuesday, according to Nielsen.
| Oct. 28, 2008 | Nov. 4, 2008 | % Growth | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unique Audience (in 000s) | 33,461 | 42,380 | 27% |
| Page Views (in 000s) | 427,385 | 868,310 | 103% |
| Time per Person (hh:mm:ss) | 0:12:22 | 0:19:51 | 61% |
| Source: Nielsen Online, Custom Analysis (October 28, 2008 and November 4, 2008). | |||
Check out historical unique audience data from Election Day 2004.
View the full media alert.
Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings in Ad Age, Silicon Alley Insider, Mediaweek, Media Life magazine, and Direct News.
[...] - Nielsen.com [...]
[...] an eye to the web to gauge coverage ratings in cyberspace. There’s a comprehensive list here if interested; CNN, MSNBC and Yahoo! News being the top three destinations for surfers on Tuesday. [...]