By: Jennifer Saba Each month E&P publishes the month's top 30 newspaper Web sites, a custom-made list complied by Nielsen Online (which is owned by The Nielsen Co., E&P's parent company). All the usual suspects are there, among them NYTimes.com (which usually wins the pole position), USAToday.com, Washingtonpost.com, and WSJ.com.
But one other paper fairly consistently joins the heavy hitters ? a paper that would not exactly jump to mind, with a circulation vastly smaller (at about 100,258) than most of the others that make the list: The Washington Times. "We believe we have built a national identity and brand that has as much of a place in markets like San Francisco, Houston or Dallas, as in Washington, D.C.," says David Eldridge, managing editor of washington- times.com. "That is one of the reasons why we are very bullish on the future."
The paper's online ascent ? in September, Nielsen reported the site had 1,356,000 unique monthly readers ? partly has to do with its conservative bent. Writers like Tony Blankley and Bill Gertz draw rabid followers. Eldridge says that a "lion's share" of the traffic come from the D.C.. area, but the site draws strong numbers from the midwest and elsewhere.
As at any news Web site, traffic spikes with big news events. Eldridge explains that when the paper called for House Speaker Denny Hastert's resignation, traffic shot northward, making it the best day of 2006. As recently as two years ago, it was the dumping ground for the daily paper, "and yet we still ranked in the top 30," Eldridge says.
Inspired by the traffic numbers, the paper is embarking on overhauling the site, and has committed millions of dollars to the project. It's ditching its legacy system for one that can handle more audio and video. Referring to the rankings, Eldridge says: "We feel like there is an opportunity to move a lot higher."
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