Alexa
dot Con
Respected Source of Data on Website Traffic
Shows Kucinich
Site in Close 3-Way Contest for Lead,
But Same Company
Excludes Kucinich Site from its Reporting
on Campaign Sites
For Immediate Release: December
5, 2003
Alexa.com, a leading internet company that serves as a source of information
on the strength of websites' activity, is deliberately excluding from its
reporting the Kucinich website, despite the fact that, according to Alexa.com's
own numbers, the Kucinich site receives more traffic than do several of
the other sites that Alexa reports on. This is not an accidental
omission. The Kucinich campaign has repeatedly called the matter
to the attention of Alexa.com and its parent company, Amazon.com.
Alexa.com is often cited in media reports as an index of which campaigns
appear to have popular support, as in these stories from the Boston Globe
and the San Francisco Chronicle: http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/articles/2003/11/04/clark_claims_to_be_the_big_hit_online/
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/09/17/MN87856.DTL
The Kucinich for President website at www.kucinich.us receives considerably
more traffic than do those for President George Bush, Senator John Kerry,
Senator John Edwards, Senator Joe Lieberman, Congressman Dick Gephardt,
Ambassador Carol Mosley Braun, or Reverend Al Sharpton. The Kucinich
site is in third place and in a close battle for the lead with the sites
of General Wesley Clark and Governor Howard Dean. This is based on
the rankings that can be found on Alexa.com at http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?q=&url=http://www.kucinich.us/
Alexa also has a page comparing the presidential campaign sites.
This page is prominently linked at the top of the main Alexa.com page at
www.alexa.com . It excludes any data on the Kucinich site, and does
not even include the Kucinich site in its list of sites. It does
include several campaign sites with lower rankings, including Senator Hillary
Clinton's despite her not being a candidate. The data on the Kucinich
site provided above is much more difficult to locate on Alexa's site.
Kucinich supporters have complained about this to Alexa for weeks with
no results. Alexa told the Kucinich campaign on December 1st that
it would correct this page. The Kucinich campaign contacted both
Alexa and its parent company, Amazon.com, on December 4 to again request
the correction. This page, which apparently excludes Kucinich as
a matter of official policy, is at
http://pages.alexa.com/features/candidates.html
The Kucinich campaign has redesigned its website and provided faster
loading pages, and has added many popular new features in the past weeks,
including areas for supporters to post their reasons for joining the campaign;
an area for supporters to post their opinions on NAFTA; a photo gallery;
an audio gallery; a video gallery; an opportunity to purchase Kucinich's
book or to purchase videos; a page of free holiday E-cards to send to friends
and family; a place to sign up to travel to Iowa or New Hampshire; and
what the campaign calls Reality-Based Fundraising, i.e. opportunities to
contribute money to specific projects, including billboards, yard signs,
and interns. The site is updated almost every day with statements
from the candidate, and also includes a popular discussion forum where
supporters' conversations are guided by a fulltime staff person with the
title Virtual Outreach Coordinator. The Kucinich campaign, unlike
others, has purchased no advertisements on the internet.
Webmaster Karen Kilroy and Virtual Outreach Coordinator Claudia Slate
are available to comment on this success.
For more information: http://www.kucinich.us
For Rep. Kucinich's Schedule: http://www.kucinich.us/schedule.htm
Contact: David Swanson