Men’s Journal was the fastest growing top-50 news website in the US in May, quadrupling its traffic compared to the same month a year earlier. Of the 50 biggest news websites by visits in June, 34 saw month-on-month growth (up from 15 in May) and 29 saw a year-on-year increase (up from 14 last month). Al.com saw the biggest month-on-month growth at 14%, and was one of just six websites to see an increase in visits compared to July.
Among the 50 most-visited online newsbrands in the US in February, 11 increased their traffic compared with the month before, while 19 saw decreases of 10% or more. The only sites to lose more visits compared to the month before were CBS News (71.1 million, down 9%), Athlon (down 11%) and another UK site, The Independent (23.6 million, down 11%). The Washington Post was also among the eight news sites not to increase its web traffic compared to February, instead dropping 6%.
Similarweb generates its traffic data by applying machine learning and modelling to the statistically representative datasets that the company collects. “Maybe it’s not in the millions, but there are in the tens of thousands that have posted on Moltbook and that’s quite a lot of traffic for something that is new and exciting like this,” he said. Visits to the Gannett-owned site were up by 32% year-on-year to 151.4 million – echoing its year-on-year growth rate last month.
The sites in the list are based on Similarweb’s classification of news and media publishers, although Press Gazette refines the list to exclude some sites with a less journalistic focus. Across https://ascleiden.nl/content/new-titles?page=198 the top 50, 11 sites saw year-on-year growth, an improvement from just four seeing an increase in November. Forbes recorded the third highest month-on-month increase in visits, up 15% to 59.3 million. Northern Colorado’s Weld County, one of the fastest growing counties in the state, is looking to evolve their economic diversity in the decades to come.
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The Independent is one of several UK newsbrands along with The Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Express and the BBC that have recently put focus on expansion in the US. The Daily Mail remained the best-ranked British newsbrand in the ranking (107.7 million visits) in tenth, one place ahead of the BBC (101 million). UK newsbrand The Independent (25.7 million, up 44%) also made the top ten for growth, ranking 39th in the top 50. Newsweek was the fastest-growing news site in the US in February while climate news startup The Cooldown entered the list in 42nd position, according to Press Gazette’s latest ranking.
Two-thirds of the top news sites in the US saw traffic shrink month-on-month in August following a bumper July. 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. Fox also lost approximately 1% of its US web visits in October compared with the month before.
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The publication, likely spurred by the city’s historic wildfires, grew its web visits nearly 120% to 42.3 million in January, but in February these returned to 20.8 million – a 51% month-on month fall. The drops mirror widespread gains in February, when only nine top sites saw traffic losses and 21 posted gains of 10% or greater. Despite its monthly gain The Cooldown was the second-largest faller year-on-year among the top 50, losing 24% of its traffic compared to March last year.
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- Visits to People.com were up 27% year-on-year to reach 145.7 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.
- The publication, likely spurred by the city’s historic wildfires, grew its web visits nearly 120% to 42.3 million in January, but in February these returned to 20.8 million – a 51% month-on month fall.
- Most of the top ten sites saw steep year-on-year drops with CNN down 27.9% year on year to 311.7 million visits , Fox News down 23.9% year on year and the New York Post down 27%.
- Celebrity-focused People.com saw the most year-on-year growth in the top ten, growing visits 37% to 142.1 million.
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The Daily Mail remained the best-ranked British newsbrand in the ranking (rank 11, 113 million visits), just ahead of the BBC (rank 12, 106.9 million). 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. Month-on-month New York Post (149.4 million, up 7%), USA Today (up 3%) and MSN (263.2 million, up 2%) were fastest-growing.
British news site The Independent (34.8 million), which claimed in November to have become the biggest British-born news site in the US according to Comscore data, also notched 70.4% year-on-year growth. All but one of the ten most-visited news sites in the US, and almost four in five of the top 50, grew their visits compared with September. Most of the top newsbrands in the US saw web traffic growth in October following two months of declines. Year-on-year the fastest-growing top ten news site was the AP, which saw 162.5% more visits in November 2024 than it did in the same month in 2023. Most of the ten most-visited news sites in the US benefitted from the November surge, with The New York Times (528.6 million, up 11% month-on-month), USA Today (203.5 million, up 9.8%) and CNN (460 million, up 8.2%) all notching notable gains. Three in five of the top 50 most-visited news sites in the US saw traffic grow compared with October — although there were some notable exceptions.
Far-right website Gateway Pundit, which entered the chart at 48th last month, has in turn fallen out of the top 50. The site has since rolled out its inaugural paywall, the effects from which will only become visible next month. In September the shallowest traffic falls were recorded at The New York Times (down 1.9% to 355 million) and Forbes (down 2.1% to 113 million). Major news events in the US in September included Hurricane Helene hitting North Carolina, a second failed assassination attempt against Trump, and the first TV debate between him and Kamala Harris.
