The Democratic National Convention in Search and News Traffic

People Magazine and NBC Chicago got the biggest boosts from the Democratic National Convention, while Gus Walz was the breakout star of search

To gauge the impact of last week’s Democratic National Convention on news media traffic, we analyzed search and traffic trends over the past month, paying special attention to the convention week. In any given week, multiple news stories are traffic drivers, but filtering searches related to the names of the Democratic candidates, as well as the DNC and the convention itself, we identified standout performers such as People Magazine. All statistics in this report are based on traffic and search from within the US.

Key takeaways

• Among the most visited news and media websites, People Magazine received the biggest week-over-week traffic boost, a 5.9% increase, during the convention, largely for its coverage of Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz and his family.
• Traffic to the NBC Chicago affiliate website (nbcchicago.com) increased nearly 80% for its hometown coverage of the convention.
• Search interest in the Democratic candidates peaked on August 6, when Vice President and Democratic Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris announced Tim Walz as her running mate. Thursday August 22, the day Harris accepted the nomination, attracted about 4.6 million search clicks, or less than half of the 10 million generated by the VP announcement.

Websites with the most traffic and the most growth during the convention

Based on US average daily traffic for the week, most of the news and media websites that typically attract the most traffic actually attracted a little less the week of the convention. The exception was People Magazine (people.com), which received a 5.9% traffic bump week-over-week.

One contribution to People’s success was a series of articles about Democratic VP nominee Tim Walz and his family. Searches on “Gus Walz,” the name of the VP’s son who made news for tearfully and enthusiastically applauding his father’s speech – then being mocked for it by social media trolls – drove more than 11K search clicks to people.com, based on desktop traffic from within the US.

The week-over-week boost in traffic from within the US included the NBC Chicago affiliate (nbcchicago.com), the British tabloid The Express (express.co.uk), and the political news site Vox (vox.com). However, The Express may have received traffic gain for other reasons. On the other hand, traffic growth for the liberal magazine the New Republic (newrepublic.com) and the Detroit Free Press (freep.com) was likely convention-related.

Search demand peaked the day Harris announced her VP pick

Search demand for news about Kamala Harris and Tim Walz peaked on August 6, the day Harris announced her running made, driving 10 million clicks insearch results. By August 22, the day Harris gave her speech accepting the nomination, it climbed to 4.6 million clicks.

Most of the political search traffic captured in our analysis flowed to news websites or to Wikipedia, which captured many of those search clicks for its profile of Tim Walz.

The more detailed search breakdowns that follow are based on a 28-day snapshot of search traffic from within the US, from shortly before Kamala Harris was endorsed by President Biden to be the new Democratic nominee to August 22, the night she accepted the nomination.

Top searches about Kamala Harris

Many of the people searching for Kamala Harris by name clicked straight through to her campaign website, although Wikipedia also captured many of those searches. The New Yorker, Reuters, and Al Jazeera also captured a lot of clicks.

Top searches about Tim Walz

Wikipedia attracted the most clicks on searches related to Tim Walz, while People Magazine is the media site that stands out the most.

Given how big an issue age has been in this election, it’s no surprise that “how old is tim walz” was among the most popular searches entered in the form of a question.

People Magazine wins for traffic about Gus Walz

The trending searches related to Tim Walz were dominated by searches for information about his son, Gus, where people.com was the big winner.

Donald Trump continues to win a lot of search interest

While the Democratic National Convention was no doubt a traffic driver for news sites, former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump still appears prominently in roundups of political search results.

The example shown below is for incoming traffic to cnn.com for the 28 days ended August 22, filtered for search terms related to the presidential campaigns. In this sample, the name “Trump” still drives the most clicks – even if it’s down from the previous month, which included an assassination attempt and the Republican convention.

For people.com, the families of the presidential candidates were the bigger draw, including searches related to Gus Walz and Donald Trump’s son Barron.

The Similarweb Insights & Communications team is available to pull additional or updated data on request for the news media (journalists are invited to write to press@similarweb.com). When citing our data, please reference Similarweb as the source and link back to the most relevant blog post or similarweb.com/blog/insights/.

Contact: For more information, please write to press@similarweb.com.

Methodology

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by David F. Carr

David covers social media, digital advertising, and generative AI. With a background in web trends since the 1990s, he’s also the author of "Social Collaboration for Dummies".