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 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%).
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The Daily Mail (down 7.5% month-on-month to 113 million), which was the ninth most popular news site in the US in both July and August, dropped in September to tenth. The contraction was sharpest at Yahoo Finance (down 11.3% month-on-month to 144.4 million visits) and third-placed Fox News (down 11.2% to 260.2 million). But for most publishers visits have nonetheless improved year-on-year, with three-fifths of the top 50 recording traffic increases of at least 10% compared with September 2023. Almost all the top 50 news sites in the US saw traffic fall in September, deepening a decline that began in August. Newsweek (up 20.1%), The Atlantic (26.6 million, up 16.2% month-on-month), The Washington Post (109.7 million, up 8.7%) and Substack (53.9 million, up 7.9%) were similarly among the fastest growers. The broader traffic bounce back may reflect increased news interest in the run-up to the US election, which happened in the first week of November.
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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.
- USA Today (128.8 million, down 19%) was the fastest faller among the group, followed by CNN (345.1 million, down 14%) and BBC News (112.3 million, down 11%).
- Fox News saw the biggest slump at 14% with visits down to 249.9 million despite a busy news cycle in the US with national elections later this year.
- UK newsbrand The Independent (25.7 million, up 44%) also made the top ten for growth, ranking 39th in the top 50.
- 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).
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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.