Data AnalystFag here

Ok I'm calling major bullshit on the CNN / Drudge article!

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/18/media/matt-drudge-trump/index.html

Normally I wouldnt waste time debunking CNN bullshit (would need a full time crew of 50) but since they called out Mr Chief MOS sellout himself, I had to debunk this Fake News Fuckery attack at POTUS credibility.

RECAP: POTUS says folks are abondoning Drudge cause its now anti POTUS (since Drudge sold it to MOS). CNN Clowns then pull Drudge out of the shadows to "debunk" POTUS.

I will now debunk Drudge's debunk.

Soon as I saw the headline I knew they were going to cook the books on web data, so I actually read the article. Sure enough there it was, clear as day, 3 KeKs worth of team CNN/Drudge Fake News.

RED FLAG #1 - Web analytics traffic quoted from "Quantcast" reports. I have worked as a Senior Data Analyst for the past 15 years and have worked with every analytics platform under the sun, from major fortune 100s to small to mid size businesses. Not ONCE not a single role have I ever used or even encountered "Quantcast" as an analytics platform. Ever.

I'm not saying its not a legit platform and I'm not saying it's not used by some big companies, I'm saying it is not an industry standard or widely used platform for web analytics. It's an ad serving measurement platform, its not a primary web analytics program. Note even close.

RED FLAG #2 - CNN uses 2016 web data as their benchmark for traffic growth. Major KEK here! No one does this. If use a benchmark from 4 years ago, this says you're in DECLINE! Why?

We benchmark data YoY (year over year) using the same month (ie: March 2020 vs March 2019) to measure growth. If you have to reach outside this variance…you are desparate for good story.

When a stake holder "hand picks" a historical benchmark that is outside the standard Year Over Year (by same month) Its called the "shinny object" analytics. Because they are holding up a "shiny object" to distract you from the painful truth.

Any web data analyst knows how laughable CNNs 2016 variance comparison really is.

RED FLAG #3 - CNN quotes PAGE VIEWS and VISITS as their metrics. 2 more MAJOR KEKs! The industry standard for ANY platform specially with ad serving (ie: ads on the page) is MONTHLY UNIQUE VISITORS!

Everyone knows this. It's Ad buying 101. Its web traffic measurement 101. Its the first question advertisers ask you. "What are your Monthly Uniques". No one says "what are your page views" or "what are your visits".

Why? Because page views and visit sessions CAN BE MANIPULATED. And this is EXACTLY what DrudgeReport.com does. It has a Cron that refreshes the page every minute or two and thus increases the page views, even though you didnt refresh the actual page. Page views are inflated bullshit, specially on mobile. I've done this to increase CPMs (and ad revenue) and that was Drudge is doing.

Visits can also be easily manipulated. The standard visit session is set to 30min by defaut. You can change that to 2min and you have just increased your analytics reports visit counts x10! Even if your traffic went down!

BOTTOM LINE: If DrudgeReport.com was growing in traffic all CNN would have to do is tweet a screenshot of the 2016 to 2020 trendline of Monthly Unique Visitors. Simple. No articles, no Drudge quotes, no bullshit "shiny object", just a single screenshot.

CNN/Drudge would never show the 2016 to 2020 trendline, cause this would prove POTUS is correct.

Bottom line: Drudge's web traffic is likely in serious decline, that is why they had to go back 4 years to find a web traffic month that "beat" last month. And it was only "higher" this year in a global pandemic when the entire globe is captive at home.

The Article and Drudge's quote to "debunk" POTUS was so obviously lame that it actually proved POTUS right!

WWG1WGA