Yahoo Finance and People both shuffled up the board one spot to sixth and seventh place respectively, pushing the New York Post (150 million visits, down 7% year-on-year) down to eighth. The New York Times maintained its position in second place, with 361.8 million visits, and Fox News was third on 293 million. After Athlon the fastest-growing site in the US year-on-year was The Daily Dot (up 174.2% year-on-year to 29.2 million), which entered the top 50 for the first time in August.
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Visits to the climate-specialised newsbrand were up 25% month-on-month and 421% year-on-year (30.4 million visits). The New York Post (up 12%) saw the biggest monthly gain, followed by The New York Times, USA Today, Washington Post (122 million) and CNN, which each saw a 9% month-on-month boost in visits. Month-on-month the picture was more positive for the ten biggest sites, with all but People (down 8%) seeing more visits in March than February. The US Sun was also among the fastest-growing sites month-on-month, up 16% to 46.3 million, sharing joint fifth place with Forbes (108.3 million, also up 16% month-on-month). Among the top 50, Newsweek, which has topped the list for growth in several of the past months, was only the third fastest growing site year-on-year despite another strong month. While the New York Times remained the biggest newsbrand in the US by number of visits followed by CNN, a strong monthly performance from Fox News led it to overtake MSN (261.3 million visits) into third place, pushing MSN into fourth.
The Fox web traffic decline contrasts with the network’s reported surge in TV viewership around the election. People.com, the website of People magazine, saw the largest fall among the top ten, losing 10% of its audience compared with October. Business publisher Forbes (115.4 million, up 41.5%) saw the fastest rise, followed by People magazine (144.6 million, up 14.2%), The New York Times (up 8.9%) and the New York Post (142.1 million, up 8.1%).
In the broader top 50 both climate news site The Cooldown (25.4 million, up 123.1% month-on-month) and sports news site Athlon Sports (54.1 million, up 38.7%) saw significant growth compared with November. Among the ten most-visited news sites in the US almost every publisher posted traffic gains in January, with the UK-based BBC in particular (125.8 million visits, up 13%) re-entering the top-ten. The California newspaper, which has seen traffic dip in recent months, recorded 42.3 million visitors last month, up 118% compared with December 2024 according to Similarweb. Climate news site The Cooldown (51.6 million visits, up 52%) was the fastest grower month on month, followed by The Atlantic (30.4 million, up 43%). Celebrity news website People and the BBC were the only sites in the USA top ten to post year-on-year traffic growth. The biggest decline among the top ten were at MSN, down 28% year on year and 8% month on month to 168 million visits.
- Many of the biggest news websites in the US moved back into growth in June, according to the latest data from Similarweb.
- She covers politics at the White House and Congress and has circumnavigated the globe as a pool photographer.
- The biggest traffic pullback in the top ten was at USA Today (143.6 million, down 29.4%), followed by CNN (356.6 million, down 22.5%) and Fox News (253.6 million, down 17%).
- But the picture is rosier over a longer timespan, with three-quarters of the top 50 publishers seeing year-on-year growth in visits in August.
- Despite its robust politics offering, Axios (23.3 million) was the top 50 site with the largest monthly traffic fall, losing 17.4% of its visits compared with September.
The New York Times (456.7 million visits) remained the biggest newsbrand in the US by number of visits, followed by CNN (372.8 million), MSN, Fox News and People. At the other end of the list however, Microsoft news aggregator MSN (247.4 million visits) and News Corp’s New York Post (124.9 million) saw the biggest year-on-year slumps at 17% each. People (up 30% year-on-year), USA Today (up 20%) and Yahoo Finance (up 14%) saw the biggest increases in visits compared to February 2023. Last month The Independent also featured among the ten fastest-growing sites in the top 50, as it seeks to grow its US foothold. The New York Times remained the biggest newsbrand in the US by number of visits, followed by CNN, MSN, Fox News and Yahoo Finance (150.1 million visits) which knocked People out of fifth position.
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Across the top 50, 14 sites saw a month-on-month increase in traffic, with US-based politics site The Hill leading growth (up 45% to 44.4 million visits). Only 12 sites saw year-on-year growth across the top 50, with the biggest increase in traffic for The Times of India (up 43% to 25.2 million visits), Substack (up 39% to 74.9 million) and News Break (up 38% to 32.2 million). Each of the ten biggest news websites in the US saw traffic decline year on year in October, according to the latest Similarweb data.
Among the wider top 50, The Cool Down, which entered our ranking last month for the first time in 42nd position, saw strong growth for another month, moving up from 42nd to 35th in the table. Celebrity newsbrand People was the fastest-growing news website in the US in March according to Press Gazette’s latest ranking. The Daily Mail remained the best-ranked British newsbrand in the ranking (rank 11, 115.4 million visits), pulling further ahead of the BBC (rank 13, 106.1 million), which fell one place from twelfth in March. Those that declined only saw small traffic drops with People (down 4% compared to March) and Washington Post (117 million, also down 4%) seeing the largest drops.
The New York Times remains the most-visited news site in the US, followed by CNN (351.5 million) and Fox News (272.8 million). The AP’s consumer-facing website has seen “a lot of audience growth” since it relaunched in June 2023. It was followed by India Times (26.8 million visits, up 82% year-on-year), one of several Indian publishers to climb up the rankings in the past year. Other notable month-on-month gainers included Axios (32.3 million, up 33%), CNBC (113.2 million, up 30%), Newsweek (96.6 million, up 25%) and Idle Arena Clicker Heroes Battle Zero Hedge (26.3 million, up 13%). The news agency was banned from presidential media briefings after refusing to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America and a legal dispute is continuing.
