Before we were hacked in April GraniteGrok climbed up the Alexa Rankings (for Online news or media sites in New Hampshire) to do battle with the top 5. The redirect did some damage to that, and we almost dropped out of the top ten.
That was not great, and we’ve written about the redirects that plagued readers, but some good has come out of it. We amped up the fundraising and our new Web site, which Skip lovingly refers to as Grok 3.0, is under construction. The new security is a lot better and we’ve got some very serious plans for this platform that will, yes literally, take us to the next level.
So what level are we on now? I asked Alexa’s ranking where we stood in the New Hampshire Political/News interwebs and here’s what I learned.
When I first started the challenge back in January, we were in 9th place on this list and the Keene Sentinel was the target.
Here are the numbers form January 2018
| Site (Sorted by US Rank) | US Rank | Global Rank |
| WMUR | 4,778 | 30,102 |
| Union leader | 11,942 | 58,558 |
| SeacoastOnline | 21,743 | 95,792 |
| Fosters.com | 31,189 | 156,649 |
| Concord Monitor | 35,498 | 174,895 |
| NH1 | 36,835 | 238,547 |
| Keene Sentinel | 53,356 | 244,142 |
| Berlin Daily Sun | 58,393 | 381,351 |
| GraniteGrok | 73,950 | 331,870 |
| Laconia Daily Sun | 75,159 | 422,105 |
| Salem Observer | 96,246 | 373,971 |
| Manchester Ink Link | 116,432 | 465,027 |
| Nashua Telegraph | 144,363 | 607,225 |
| Live Free or Die Alliance | 172,276 | 769,689 |
We overtook the Keene Sentinel and were ready to take a hard run at the Concord Monitor when Boom!
It’s been two months since then, and we’re battling back. We’ve improved a great deal since the weeks (coincidentally, right around my heart attack) and we are in the hunt again. The Nashua Telegraph is our “new” next target.
| Site Name (Sorted by US Rank) | US Rank | Global Rank |
| WMUR | 5,558 | 32,476 |
| Union leader | 11,385 | 62,792 |
| SeacoastOnline | 18,153 | 101,714 |
| Fosters.com | 26,840 | 151,994 |
| Concord Monitor | 32,809 | 157,386 |
| Keene Sentinel | 44,251 | 224,876 |
| Conway Daily Sun | 47,526 | 223,029 |
| Nashua Telegraph | 60,690 | 360,003 |
| GraniteGrok | 62,911 | 303,925 |
| NH1 | 63,942 | 343,616 |
| Salem Observer | 68,455 | 393,307 |
| Laconia Daily Sun | 76,244 | 381,742 |
| Manchester Ink Link | 91,907 | 468,870 |
| NH Journal | 100,921 | 312,520 |
The Telegraph, Sentinel, and even the Conway Daily Sun have improved markedly in recent months, but we think we’ve got the right stuff to take them. Even though summer’s here and that tends to kick your traffic in the gut as people hang outside more and spend less time in front of a PC.
Yes, a more dynamic mobile experience is under discussion Grok readers, and we think that will make a difference. But we’ve got a lot more than that planned so keep checking in, clicking pages, writing comments, and we’ll do our best to be worthy of your attention.
And together we can overcome the traffic rankings of the liberal rags and beyond.
