The Sangai Express (TSE) and The Imphal Free Press (IFP) are the two most widely circulated newspapers in Manipur. The Sangai Express claims to be the largest circulated newspaper (hard copies) in the state.
However, when it comes to digital presence and pageviews, The Imphal Free Press (https://www.ifp.co.in) is miles ahead of The Sangai Express (https://www.thesangaiexpress.com).
The Sangai Express vs The Imphal Free Press
Here’s an analysis of their websites including domain, the technology used, website traffics, and engagement.
Age of Domain – As per the details available on Whois records, TSE was registered on 11th August 2003 while IFP was registered on 2003 while IFP was registered on 16 April 2005. The domains are 17yrs and 19yrs old respectively.
Technology: Both TSE and IFP have changed their technology over the years. At some point in time, both were using similar web frameworks and technologies, including WordPress.
Here’s a Wayback machine screen grab of their homepage over the years. The first snapshot available on waybackmachine for TSE is September 27, 2003, while that of IFP is July 15, 2007.
Here’s the screen grab of their initial websites.
In 2015, both the websites TSE and IFP were not using the same tech framework but were also developed by the same web development team ‘The Amusers’, as seen from their footer.
In 2019, though in a different month period, both the websites were using WordPress (as can be seen from inspect elements in waybackmachine).
Both websites are now using a different web framework. Here’s a look at the present-day website of TSE and IFP. It is observed that TSE is built on Microsoft ASP.net framework while the IFP is using Next.js framework.
If you visit the websites, you will find TSE website full of ads while that of IFP sees lesser ads which are placed in a neat layouts.
Website Traffic & Engagement: As per similarweb report, IFP is ranked 117,715 most visited site globally and 6730 ranks in India while TSE is ranked 557388 globally and 32513 ranks in India.
When it comes to traffic, IFP is miles and miles ahead of TSE. As per the similarweb report, in the last three months, ie., April – June 2022, IFP had over 1.8M (18.87 lakhs) pageviews while TSE had only 170k (1.7 lakhs) pageviews.
Here’s a graph indicating the pageviews of both websites in the last 3 months.
IFP has average monthly visits of 6.2 lakhs while TSE has only around 56k. The unique pageview of IFP is around 2.5 lakhs per month while that of TSE is only 26k.
However, TSE seems to have a better edge when it comes to visit duration at 2.43 minutes and 3.15 pages per visit. The bounce rate of IFP is at 46.86% and is better than TSE which stands at 65.87%.
When it comes to Gender and age, both the websites share a similar trend with more than 60% of its readers between the age group of 18-34.
Our Final Thoughts:
IFP changing its website from WordPress to Next.js framework seems to have worked wonders. We definitely love the fast-loading website and ads placed neatly in between the layouts and post page. The layout looks very neat and user-friendly both on the desktop as well as on the mobile view.
The same is not the case for TSE changing from WordPress to the current Microsoft ASP.net framework. Would have been better if they had just stuck with WordPress. There are hundreds of big big news websites using WordPress and it is perfect for such news websites.
In addition to this, the TSE website is bombarded with different types of Google ads, In-page ads, Anchor ads, Vignette ads, etc. It would be much better if they put the ads neatly and strategically under the post title or bottom of the post, sidebar, etc., instead of using Google Auto placement ads. They also badly need to work on their website layout and UI, it looks ugly and messy, both on desktop as well as the mobile view.
If you are planning to make a news media website, WordPress is a great choice. However, if you want to skip the hassle of maintaining and updating WordPress website, you can check out Ghost Pro, a more simple and content-focused publishing CMS. Ghost is a powerful app for new-media creators to publish, share, and grow a business around their content. It comes with modern tools to build a website, publish content, send newsletters & offer paid subscriptions to members.
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Report Source: Similarweb, whois.com, archive.org
