All but two of the ten most-visited sites in the US in September saw year-on-year traffic growth. Another notable riser was local publisher SF Gate (up six places to 36th on the back of a 0.4% month-on-month traffic drop, to 29.3 million) and libertarian blog Zero Hedge (25.2 million), which rose five places to 40th despite a 7.7% traffic decline. The only site to see a larger rise in visits compared with August was CBS News, where traffic rose 20.7% to 92.5 million, translating to a five-place rise on the charts. September saw the re-entry of The Atlantic into the top 50 (visits down 0.2% month-on-month but up 15.2% year-on-year to 22.9 million) after it dropped off in August. The only riser within the top ten, besides new entrant Forbes, was People, which was up one spot despite visits dropping 9.5% month-on-month to 147.2 million.
Google News, The New York Times and Yahoo Finance all saw a 9% month-on-month rise in visits, while People, Fox News and USA Today rose 5%. Month-on-month, however, all but one of the top ten saw traffic rise in March compared with February. Among the ten most-visited news sites in the US, the AP was followed by People magazine (158.3 million, up 14%) for year-on-year growth, then by aggregator Google News (121.1 million, up 9%) and The New York Times (492.5 million, up 6%). The Atlantic saw a jump of more than 40% month on month amid its blockbuster story published on 24 March revealing its editor had been accidentally added to a Trump administration group chat about military strikes in Yemen. Press Gazette’s top-50 ranking of US news shows the New York Times hold its lead versus CNN in top spot with 479.3 million visits in the month.
It was followed by independently run consumer-focused science news site sciencealert.com (24.4 million visits, up 66% month-on-month). Month-on-month, both Newsweek (up 31% compared to February) and The Cool Down were beaten by publishing group Advance Local’s Alabama-focused site al.com (22.6 million visits, up 67% month-on-month). 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 ten most-visited news sites in the US, Forbes (118.4 million visits) saw the greatest growth, increasing 42.7% compared with October 2023 and 4.7% compared with September 2024. 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 Natura sono fondamentali 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%).
The most notable result of the change appears to be that it has bounced CNN (525 million visits) ahead of The New York Times (385.7 million) to retake the top spot on the traffic ranking. Year-on-year, however, the fastest growth was at sports publisher Athlon Sports, which has been the case among the US top 50 every month since May. Further down the rankings The Daily Beast was the highest debuting publication, entering the top 50 at 39th place after seeing traffic rise 22% month-on-month to 30 million. Mail Online remained steady at ninth place with 122.2 million visits while Google News (120.8 million) jumped three places to tenth despite losing 4% of traffic month-on-month, displacing Newsweek (115.7 million) from the top ten. But in August People.com (162.6 million visits) and Yahoo Finance (162.8 million) were the only top ten sites to continue growing their traffic, by 3% and 2% respectively.
On the other end of the scale the fastest year-on-year traffic losses were seen by the Los Angeles Times (25.8 million, down 30% on October 2023), the Daily Mail (104.1 million, down 22.8%) and Fox News. The fastest-growing top-ten site month-on-month was USA Today, followed by aggregator Google News (122.4 million, up 8.6%) and People. At the start of October the site deployed a new paywall, which does not appear to have immediately hurt its web visits. CNN (425 million) remains the most-visited news site in the US despite an 11.8% year-on-year decrease in traffic — the only fall among the top ten besides Fox News (258.1 million), which lost 22.5% of its October 2023 traffic. Thirty websites in the top 50 also saw their visits grow year-on-year in October, as well as eight of the top ten.
Fastest-growing was long-standing sports publisher Athlon Sports, which entered our top 50 for the first time in 33rd place (35.9 million visits, up 962% year-on-year). People meanwhile retook fifth place following its strong growth, with Yahoo Finance (154.4 million) falling into seventh. MSNBC (29.2 million) increased visits by 66%, NBC News (128 million) by 62%, Axios (40 million) by 54% and The Atlantic (28.2 million) by 52%.