The release of an updated list of conservative websites by Right Wing News and Red Flag News requires a corresponding update to the weekly Top 40 – using rankings from Alexa – a day earlier than planned.

Six new sites that were not previously being monitored have debuted on the Top 40.  Relative to last week’s suite of sites, American Thinker’s rank is unchanged – although four new sites now rank above it.

There is a vigorous, but healthy, debate going on in some circles about which website ranking tool will give the most accurate results.  The correct answer is: we don’t know.  All website ranking efforts are approximations to varying degrees, and Alexa is an industry standard site.

Alexa’s rankings of conservative websites tend to make intuitive sense, with a few exceptions.  Is Independent Journal Review really one of the most popular websites in the U.S., ahead of the Wall Street Journal and Forbes?  IJR’s rank in the U.S. is 66.  For perspective, the Washington Post is in 60^th.

According to the Red Flag News analysis of some conservative websites using Quantcast, IJR is actually ahead of Fox News, The Blaze, is just behind Fox News, and a large number of other sites that Alexa ranks as well outside the top 40 end up being top-tier sites that rank ahead of what would commonly be perceived as the most popular web pages.  To say these two ranking systems give wildly different results is an understatement.

For now, Alexa appears to be giving more reasonable results – but times may change as new information becomes available.  As always, caveat emptor.