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Drudge Report still dominant

The Drudge Report is the leading source of referral traffic (excluding social media and search referrals) for many of the top news organizations in the country, according to a new report from the Drudge Report's advertising management firm Intermarkets.

The bare bones conservative aggregator and agitator hasn't changed much in more than two decades and has enormous influence in conservative circles. In 2014, DrudgeReport.com was the No. 1 site of referral traffic to the Daily Mail, CNN, Fox News, Roll Call, Breitbart, The New York Times, National Journal, USA Today, Associated Press, Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and POLITICO, Intermarkets found.

Another unique aspect for Drudge is that 87 percent of its own traffic is from readers going directly to DrudgeReport.com and staying there for an average of 30 minutes.

"People are religious in how they come to Drudge," Vipul Mistry, Intermarket's Business Development manager told the On Media blog. "When we analyzed all our audience that's what it is, people are on there not only in morning, they tend to leave it open as it refreshes."

Drudge has 2 million daily unique visitors and around 700 million monthly page views, almost entirely from within the United States, Mistry said.

The Daily Mail had 99 million referrals from Drudge last year, Intermarkets found. CNN.com had 64 million, The Washington Post 47 million and The New York Times 36 million. The AP's website is a big beneficiary from Drudge, receiving more than 50 percent of its traffic from the site.

See the full info graphic here.

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Hadas Gold is a reporter at Politico.