CALLER: Hi, Rush. I just want to start by saying that I’m so honored because this is the second time that I’ve gotten through to you just in the last six months or so.
RUSH: Wow.
CALLER: So I feel so blessed. I grew up listening to you with my father, and I’m a Millennial Rush Baby, one of the few. (giggles)
RUSH: Well, I appreciate that. Thank you very much.
CALLER: Oh, thank you for all that you do and say. I want to appeal to your technical savvy and expertise. I was reading recently that Drudge Report is breaking the records, how they have over a billion hits just in the month of July. And my question to you was, I notice that when I’m on the Drudge Report and I’m scrolling through trying to take in all the headlines… I notice that the page reloads rather frequently — every couple of minutes, actually. I was wondering if you thought that might fudge the number of hits that are actually getting. You know, the same person can get registered multiple times within their one visit to the page.
RUSH: No, I don’t think… I don’t think a page reload is tabulated the same as clicking on a link. It’s a good question. I’m gonna have to find that out. I don’t think it’s the same. You actually… The numbers that Drudge promotes, the record number of hits are actually people clicking on the links. The reason that page refreshes so fast is because the news refreshes that fast. The page refresh is designed to get you looking at what might be new. It is a strategical thing. It’s not hard to set that up. There are a couple things we’ve done at RushLimbaugh.com, and I said, “Look, can you set this up as an auto reload like every 90 seconds?”
And I got the biggest bunch of, “We can’t do it” type stuff.
CALLER: (giggles)
RUSH: I don’t even remember what the reasons were. But clearly the people didn’t want to do it, didn’t want to. But so it’s apparently not that easy to do, which surprises me. It seems like it would be easy. An auto refresh seems to me not complicated at all. But I think it’s just a strategic thing that Drudge does just to make sure that you don’t miss news. A page gets updated a lot, and, you know, every time it refreshes when you are there it makes you wonder, “Is there something new here?” and you start scanning.
CALLER: Okay.
RUSH: It’s all about keeping you there. Look, every website proprietor wants you to stay there, and they’re looking for every reason they can to get you to stay there, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t want you leaving this program. We do similar things here. We don’t reload your radio of course.
CALLER: (giggles) Well, I didn’t want to take —
RUSH: We do content.
CALLER: Go ahead, Rush.
RUSH: You didn’t want to do what?
CALLER: I didn’t want to do take anything away from Drudge because I love reading his page every day, but I just… I knew you were definitely the person to ask.
RUSH: Well, no, I am. There’s no question I’m the right person to ask, and even if I am a smidgen wrong about this, I will find out about it and correct it. But even if… Let me… Dwindling seconds. Even if a page reload counts as a hit, believe me that doesn’t explain the billions of people and hits that that page gets. Don’t think it’s a substitute for that. It’s genuine.