Philippine Media's Global Ranking, April-July 2012

Compared to last month or the last three months, the global traffic ranking of all major Philippine media outlets and porttals have increased. See below, via alexa.com,

I did not notice sunstar.com.ph last month and earlier months, so I am including it only today. Here are the major gainers in global traffic ranking after three months:

1. bworldonline.com, jumped by nearly 27,000 positions.
2. rappler.com, jumped by more than 17,000 positions.
3. manilastandardtoday.com, overtook nearly 15,000 other websites and blogs.
4. interaksyon.com, up by more than 11,000 in ranking.

Meanwhile, here's what I posted last month, June 24, 2012:

I continue the monthly tracking of the top Philippine media portals and their positions in global internet traffic via alexa.com. I only track those with global rank of below 100,000. Here are their alexa traffic rank 3 months prior to dates indicated.

The top 4 -- Inquirer, ABS-CBN, GMA and Philippine Star -- did not gain much over the past two months, mainly because they have high positions already. The big gainers in global ranking over the past two months were:

1. Interaksyon, from 24,801 to 16,079 or a jump of 8,722.
2. Rappler, from 43,957 to 29,170 or overtaking 14,787 other websites and blogs.
3. BusinessWorld, from 89,237 to 74,211 or overtaking 15,026 other sites.
4. Business Mirror, from about 120,000+ to 99,392.



The losers in ranking were:

1. Manila Bulletin, from 17,951 to 18,454 or slumped by 503.
2. Manila Standard, from 65,622 to 76,113 or overtaken by 10,491 other sites, including BusinessWorld.

The consolation is that these two newspapers are still in the top 100,000, a feat that other broadsheets here and abroad can only dream and salivate.

Then I looked at four charts comparing the traffic rank trend of #2 to #5, I did not include the Inquirer as it looks as an "outlier" at the moment due to its very high rank. Below, traffic trend over the past six months, and past three months. See some interesting notes?

Starting from January 2012, #s 2 to 4, namely ABS-CBN, GMA and Philippine Star, actually suffered a decline in global ranking until early May this year. Then the big jump -- should be due to the latter part of the Corona impeachment trial at the Senate where some of the huge political drama and twists occurred. Interaksyon just maintained its upward trend since it came from a rather low base.

The last three months traffic trend clearly showed this pattern. Then they retained their relatively high positions compared to January-April 2012 levels.

The charts for the past 30 days and past 7 days, below. Nothing so dramatic except the jump over the past four days or so. Could be the renewed tension between China and the Philippines over the Scarborough and West Philippine Sea?

Ok, ok, so what have these media monitoring got to do with advancing individual liberty and personal responsibility, free market and free trade, rule of law and property rights, the main advocacies of this blog and Minimal Government Thinkers? Nothing much actually, except to show that stiff competition among news and public affairs portals, and the quick intrusion of online only, no hard copy portals like Interaksyon and Rappler, are kicking in hard. They affirm the values of freedom of expression and free market competition.

Readers can draw their own conclusions and insights based on the limited data presented above. Meanwhile, below are what I wrote last April and May on this subject.
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I wrote this last May 24, 2012:

The world is indeed getting more dynamic somewhere. In the case of Philippine media, things are improving rapidly for some in terms of their popularity, deteriorating for others, while a few have remained stationary, even temporarily. See this table, global ranking over the past three months of big Philippine media via alexa.com. First column is for April 24, 2012, second column as of today, May 24, 2012.

* Slight improvement in the global rank of the Inquirer.over last month ranking, and it remains #1 among Philippine news media..
* Slight decline in the ranking of ABS-CBN, GMA.and Philippine Star but they retained their positions as #s 2 to 4.
* Big jump in just one month for TV5's news portal and Rappler. Interaksyon has gained, or overtaken more than 5,500 other websites and blogs worldwide, in just one month. While Rappler has overtaken nearly 8,000 other sites and blogs worldwide in just one month.
* Manila Standard has slipped by nearly 6,000 places, while BusinessWorld has overtaken more than 9,000 other websites and blogs.
* Other relatively big local media players that failed to land in the top 100,000 in alexa global ranking are: Business Mirror, Journal, Malaya and Manila Times.

Interaksyon.com is slowly moving towards the top 10,000 rank. If current trends will continue, it might reach this ranking within four months, sometime in September this year.

I compared the traffic ranking over the past three months of ABS-CBN, GMA, Philippine Star and Interaksyon and here's an interesting graph.

It is obvious that Chief Justice Corona's impeachment trial has contributed significantly to the global traffic rank of Philippine media, especially the above-mentioned ones.

Meanwhile, congratulations once again to Interaksyon and Rappler. You are sizzling hot. Whatever it is that you are doing, sustain them.
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And I wrote this last April 24, 2012:

Last night, I checked the global ranking via alexa.com of the biggest media outlets in the Philippines. I wanted to see how interaksyon.com, TV5's news portal, is positioned, that's why. And I'm interested to see because I write a weekly column there since last month. Here's what I got. I removed from the list those papers whose global rank is higher than 100,000, as of last night at least.

Site Information for inquirer.net Alexa Traffic Rank: 4,083
Traffic Rank in PH: 29  Sites Linking In: 14,469

Site Information for abs-cbnnews.com Alexa Traffic Rank: 5,431
 Traffic Rank in PH: 47  Sites Linking In: 7,852

Site Information for igma.tv Alexa Traffic Rank: 6,972
 Traffic Rank in PH: 74  Sites Linking In: 3,163

Site Information for philstar.com Alexa Traffic Rank: 8,431
 Traffic Rank in PH: 80  Sites Linking In: 8,158

Site Information for mb.com.ph Alexa Traffic Rank: 17,951
 Traffic Rank in PH: 172  Sites Linking In: 8,089

Site Information for interaksyon.com Alexa Traffic Rank: 24,801
 Traffic Rank in PH: 124  Sites Linking In: 1,522

Site Information for rappler.com Alexa Traffic Rank: 43,957
 Traffic Rank in PH: 229  Sites Linking In: 1,252

Site Information for manilastandardtoday.com Alexa Traffic Rank: 65,622
 Traffic Rank in PH: 481   Sites Linking In: 2,740

Site Information for bworldonline.com Alexa Traffic Rank: 89,237
 Traffic Rank in PH: 741  Sites Linking In: 2,616

Site Information for journal.com.ph Alexa Traffic Rank: 98,921
 Traffic Rank in PH: 1,132  Sites Linking In: 1,054.

Interaksyon.com's 6th place rank, behind Philippine Star and Manila Bulletin, I think can be explained by the lower site links of the former, only 1,522 vs. 8,158 and 8,089 respectively of the latter. While actual online views of interaksyon.com is larger than these two broadsheet papers, alexa and other sites that make global ranking I think factor in the number of back links to the site.

I will try to make this "survey" again next month or two months after to see if there are any significant changes in global ranking.