TechCrunch’s traffic is down 35 percent from a year ago, paidContent reports, and it’s probably due to the mass exodus of talent following founder Michael Arrington’s highly visible departure.

The “trickle” of high-profile departures “became a flood this year” (the latest to leave is Jason Kincaid) and TechCrunch is now “gutted of nearly all its talent.”

There are still more than 30 staffers listed on the site’s masthead, but traffic is, indeed, down, and Techmeme has said that the site is sliding down its leaderboard.

But bully for AOL for trying, PaidContent says. “Keep in mind that TechCrunch’s $25 million price tag amounted to a cheap investment for a major media company seeking to acquire a gloss of tech cachet. The purchase doesn’t appear to have had any significant effect on AOL’s bottom line. While AOL doesn’t break out TechCrunch in its financial reporting – and didn’t speak about the tech blog in its last earnings call—AOL’s share price has been flying high. Meanwhile, AOL recently reported ongoing traffic growth at the Huffington Post Group (which it bought for 10 times the price of TechCrunch) and annual company-wide revenues of $2.2 billion for 2011.”