The BBC and the Mail Online were among the top three fastest-growing large newsbrands in the US in September, according to Press Gazette’s latest monthly ranking.
- Top 50 most popular news websites in the UK (monthly ranking)
- Top 50 most popular news websites in the world (monthly ranking)
Of the top ten biggest English-language sites by number of visits, Mail Online was second-fastest growing with 116.8 million visits (an increase of 22% year-on-year), while the BBC was third fastest-growing with 142 million visits (up 21% year-on-year), according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb.
They were however both beaten by the New York Times, which once again was the fastest-growing top ten site in the US (457.3 million visits, up 58%). Since acquiring word game Wordle in the first part of this year, the New York Times has seen a consistent run of audience growth.
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September was a better month for US traffic to the larger newsbrands than August, with seven of the ten biggest brands recording year-on-year growth in audience, compared to just four in August. Additionally five newsbrands (New York Times, Mail Online, BBC, New York Post and MSN) recorded double-digit growth.
When it comes to the largest site by number of visits, The New York Times retained its spot at the top of the table. It was followed by CNN (419.7 million visits, up 1%) over which it extended its margin compared to August.
Third-biggest was Microsoft’s aggregator MSN (299.9 million visits, up 11%), fourth-biggest was foxnews.com (258.4 million visits, down 17%) while fifth-biggest was Google News (166.5 million visits, down 6%).
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Among the top 50 as a whole, last month’s fastest-growing site, the Sun’s US edition, the-sun.com came in second place for growth this time (44.6 million visits, up 90% year-on-year). Newsletter platform Substack meanwhile was eighth-fastest growing with 21.5 million visits (up 30%).
In a departure from recent months, just over half of news sites (26) saw year-on-year growth in the number of visits. This is possibly linked to a busy US news agenda in recent weeks, with stories such as Hurricane Ian and the slowdown in the global economy likely driving increased interest in news.
Similarweb generates its traffic data by applying machine learning and modelling to the statistically representative datasets that the company collects. Datasets are based on direct measurement (i.e. websites and apps that choose to share first-party analytics with Similarweb); contributory networks that aggregate device data; partnerships and public data extraction from websites and apps. 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 which do not fall under news, culture and lifestyle in its definition.
Press Gazette uses Similarweb data for its US and worldwide top 50 English-language news ranking stories so we can compare figures across publishers, who differ in how they measure their own audience data.
Continue reading for previous months' coverage of the top 50 websites for news in the US:
August 2022
The Sun’s US edition was the fastest-growing site in the US in August, according to the latest monthly ranking of sites by Press Gazette.
There were 55.3 million visits to the-sun.com, a 150% increase year-on-year, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.
The UK tabloid launched its US digital edition in 2020 along with a separate US Twitter account which currently counts 9,222 followers. The Sun’s US site has seen steady growth since launch and has risen to twentieth place in our US news ranking.
The-sun.com was also the fastest growing site month-on-month with visits in August up 34% compared to July.
Of the top ten sites by number of visits, just four saw year-on-year growth in August. For the second month in a row, the New York Times, New York Post and Mail Online all saw double-digit growth. Visits to the New York Times were up 52% year-on-year to 468.7 million, while second and third-fastest growing were the New York Post (146.7 million visits, up 26%) and Mail Online (117 million visits, up 14%).
Microsoft’s news aggregator MSN was the only other site in the top ten to grow in August (292.6 million visits, up 6% year-on-year).
The New York Times remains the largest site in the US by number of visits. The legacy publisher has grown in popularity, earlier this year replacing CNN as the most popular digital newsbrand in the country. Its recent growth, as Press Gazette has reported, may in part be due to its acquisition of popular word game Wordle in the first quarter of this year.
The second-biggest site for number of visits was CNN (438.6 million visits, down 5% year-on-year) while in third place was Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News (294.3 million visits, down 10% year-on-year). MSN and Google News round out the top five.
The BBC sites (bbc.co.uk and bbc.com) were the best-ranked British domains among the US top 50 (rank nine, 123.2 million visits). It narrowly beat Mail Online (tenth place).
Like July, August was overall a slow month for growth as just 17 sites of the top 50 saw year-on-year increases in their audience. It’s probable that year-on-year traffic declines for many sites reflect a return to more stable traffic patterns after a surge of interest to news sites in 2020 and 2021.
July 2022
The Mail Online was one of only three top ten sites by number of visits to grow its US audience in July, according to the latest monthly ranking of news websites from Press Gazette.
US visits to dailymail.co.uk were up 15% year-on-year to reach 115.7 million, according to digital intelligence platform Similarweb. It was beaten only by the New York Times (458.7 million visits, up 55%) and New York Post (163.9 million visits, up 41%). As Press Gazette has reported in recent months, the New York Times has seen continued strong audience growth in 2022 which may in part be due to its acquisition of popular word game Wordle in the first quarter of this year.
Yahoo Finance (155.9 million visits, down 14% year-on-year) and Google News (174.3 million visits, down 13%) saw the biggest slumps in growth of the top ten sites.
Among the top 50 as a whole, the fastest growing site was internet culture site dailydot.com (20.2 million visits, up 178%). It was followed by the US website of UK tabloid The Sun (41.1 million visits, up 78%) and news aggregator Newsbreak (19.8 million visits, up 55%).
Mail Online also performed well among the top 50 as a whole, ranking tenth for year-on-year growth in this wider group.
The most popular online news source in the US was the New York Times which earlier this year knocked CNN off its top spot (419.9 million visits, down 6% year-on-year). Third most popular was foxnews.com (286.9 million visits, down 5%), which was followed by Microsoft’s msn.com (275.7 million visits, down 4%), and Google News.
Just 17 sites in the top 50 saw higher traffic this July compared to the same month in 2021. Content analytics firm Chartbeat has said that while news traffic in 2021 was more stable than 2020 where the pandemic and US election pushed readership very high in some months, some 2020 readership gains persisted in 2021. This month’s year-on-year traffic decline may therefore reflect a return to more stable traffic patterns, especially as interest in the Ukraine war has waned.
Update: this article and its charts was amended on 23 August to reflect a revised set of traffic figures received from Similarweb. The visit data for a number of websites mentioned in this article have been changed .
June 2022
The New York Times was again the fastest-growing top ten news site in the US in June, according to Press Gazette’s monthly ranking.
Visits to the US publisher’s site were up 21% year-on-year to 310.4 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.
The New York Times Company earlier this month reported that it had added about 180,000 net digital-only subscribers in the second quarter of the year - a slowdown in growth compared to previous quarters. The company’s All Digital Access tier, which includes its games and cooking content, however recorded its highest ever number of new subscribers. The NYT also notably acquired the online game Wordle in February this year.
Microsoft’s news aggregator and portal MSN was the only other top ten site by number of visits to see year-on-year growth in June (340.8 million visits, up 1%).
Other major sites saw traffic fall or stay static. There were 99.4 million visits to nypost.com (no change year-on-year), 105 million to business news site Cnbc.com (down 1%) and 103.3 million to Yahoo News (down 1%).
CNN was once again the biggest news site in the US in June (373 million visits, down 5% year-on-year). It was followed by msn.com, nytimes.com, foxnews.com (240.7 million, down 6%) and Google News (174.8 million, down 10%) in a top five largely unchanged from recent months.
The top-ranked British newsbrand in the US list remains Mail Online although it this month dropped out of the top ten to eleventh spot (99.1 million visits, up 8% year-on-year but down 11% month-on-month). The BBC was ranked twelfth (87.3 million, down 19%) while the Guardian site maintained its rank of 16 (54.3 million visits, down 12% year-on-year).
Among the whole top 50, the fastest growing site was again instapundit.com. Visits to the popular political blog were up more than 2,500 times to 17 million, following a lull in the site’s traffic in the same month last year according to Similarweb’s analytics.
Sportz Bonanza, the fastest growing site worldwide this month, also grew sharply year-on-year in the US with visits up 4,698% to 45.9 million.The independent.co.uk was the ninth-fastest growing with visits up 12% to 16.7 million.
May 2022
The New York Times topped the list for the fastest-growing top ten news site in the US for the third month in a row.
Of the top ten English-language sites in the US by number of visits in May, nytimes.com saw the most year-on-year growth (352.2 million visits, up 36%), according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.
The publisher, which released its first quarter results in April put much of its growth down to acquisition of viral game Wordle. The New York-based title gained an impressive 301,000 new digital subscribers in the first quarter, although it said this was its slowest gain in over a year.
It was followed by the website of Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid, nypost.com which had 119 million visitors in May, an increase of 27% on the same month in 2021.
Website of British mid-market daily, Mail Online, was the third fastest growing site in the US top ten and its performance in May was even better in May than April. Visits to its site were up 21% to 111.9 million (in April it grew 16% year-on-year).
Microsoft’s news aggregator MSN (347.6 million visits, up7%) was the only other top ten site to see more traffic year-on-year.
Among the whole top 50, the fastest growing site was instapundit.com. The long-standing blog by Glen Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee, is one of the most popular blogs on the internet. In May, Reynold’s site counted 204.2 million visits (up from a lull in 2021 when visits fell to less than 10,000 in some months according to Similarweb figures).
CNN maintained its position atop the US table as the biggest site in the US in May (393.2 million visits, no change year-on-year). It was followed by nytimes.com, msn.com (347.6 million visits, foxnews.com (248.4 million visits) and Google News (179.4m).
Echoing the global picture, the majority of sites saw more visits in May than April. The BBC was one of just eight sites that saw less traffic in May than the previous month.
The BBC was also one of just three British newsbrands in the top half of the list (100.3 million visits, ranked 12). Best-ranked British newsbrand was ninth-place Mail Online (111.9 million visits, up 21% year-on-year). Theguardian.com, in sixteenth place, had 60.7 million visits, down 3% year-on-year). The Mail Online’s US growth in recent months has moved the site, owned by Lord Rothermere's DMGT up the table where it has replaced the BBC as the only British name in the US top ten. Similarweb data includes traffic to all BBC sites and not just its news pages.
Similarweb generates its traffic data by applying machine learning and modelling to the statistically representative datasets that the company collects. Datasets are based on direct measurement (i.e. websites and apps that choose to share first-party analytics with Similarweb); contributory networks that aggregate device data; partnerships and public data extraction from websites and apps.
Press Gazette uses Similarweb data for its US and global top 50 news site ranking stories so we can compare figures across publishers, who differ in how they measure their own audience data.
April 2022
While CNN still sits atop the list of biggest websites for US news, the New York Times has continued its strong recent run as the fastest growing major news site in the country for the second month in a row.
Of the top ten English-language sites in the US by number of visits in April, the New York Times site saw the most year-on-year growth with visits up 30% to 355.5m, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.
The publisher, which released its first quarter results earlier this month, said its acquisition of viral game Wordle had brought "an unprecedented tens of millions of new users to The Times".
The New York Times was one of a minority of sites in the top 50 that saw more traffic this April compared to the same month last year, echoing the picture in our global top 50 ranking. Only 17 of the top 50 US news sites saw year-on-year traffic gains in April, compared to half of all sites last month .
The NY Times was followed by the site of US tabloid New York Post, which saw the second-highest year-on-year growth in traffic (109.7m visits, up 16%) among the ten most visited sites. It was followed by Mail Online (103.3m visits, also up 16%). Microsoft’s news aggregator MSN (335.1 visits, up 7%) and Yahoo’s news aggregator (103.8m visits, up 5%) were the only other top ten sites with more traffic this April than in April 2021.
As with the global ranking, news sites saw fewer visits from the US in April compared to March as interest in the Ukraine conflict, entering its fourth month, is likely to be waning. Only Atlanta Black Star saw a significant month-on-month increase in traffic (24.6m visits, up 18%.
The black news site (which is placed 38th in the ranking) was also the fastest growing site year-on-year in the top 50 with visits up 74%.
British news sites also did well in April with three UK newsbrands among the ten fastest growing news sites year-on-year in the top 50. The Sun’s US digital edition continued its strong recent audience growth and was the second fastest growing site in the top 50 (17.7m visits, up 67%). Next best-placed UK newsbrand was Mail Online, which was followed by The Independent (181.1m visits, up 16%).
As in March, mainstream newsbrands featured strongly in the top ten sites for year-on-year growth taking seven of the top ten spots.
When it comes to number of visits, Mail Online was the only British site in a US-dominated top ten. The DMGT-owned site, which placed 12th last month, moved up three places in the ranking coming in ninth place in April. In contrast the BBC, which has tended to be the only British name in the top ten, fell down the ranking to twelfth place (101m visits, down 11% year-on-year). Similarweb data includes traffic to all BBC sites and not just its news pages.
Leading a top five unchanged from last month, CNN was the biggest site in the US in April (367.5m visits), followed by nytimes.com, msn.com, foxnews.com (229.9m visits) and Google News (170.6m).
In contrast to the UK ranking, a significant number of conservative and right-wing news sites continue to feature in the US top 50. Among them are drudgereport.com (42.1m visits, rank 23), breitbart.com (41m visits, rank 24), thegatewaypundit.com (26.6m visits, rank 36),
newsmax.com (25.2m visits, rank 37), zerohedge.com (22.6m visits, rank 39), theepochtimes.com (20.1m visits, rank 42), and dailywire.com (18.5m visits, rank 44).
March 2022
The New York Times was the fastest growing major news site in the US in March 2022, as mainstream news brands showed strong growth overall.
Of the top ten sites by number of visits in March, the website of the US daily saw the strongest growth with 420.4m visits during the month, an increase of 47% compared to March 2021 according to Similarweb data. The increase is likely in part due to the publisher's acquisition of highly popular word game Wordle. Similarweb data on top search terms for The New York Times' site reveals that Wordle was the most popular organic search term leading to the publisher's site.
Among the bigger publishers, it was followed for growth by Yahoo News (116.3m visits, up 16%), Microsoft news aggregator MSN (365.4m visits, up 12%), the BBC (124.8m visits, up 11%) and Fox News (269.5m visits, up 8%).
In contrast to recent months where the bigger sites have tended to see year-on-year falls in traffic, traffic to mainstream brands was up in March, likely driven by a surge of interest in news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and a search for trusted sources of information.
Across the top 50 sites overall, the Sun’s US digital edition maintained its long run of audience growth and was the fastest growing site overall year-on-year (21m visits, 124% growth). The US digital version of the UK tabloid was ranked 43rd overall in terms of number of visits and it has slowly moved up the table in recent months.
The second fastest growing site in the top 50 in March was Reuters.com (44.7m visits, up 60%), followed by nytimes.com, independent.co.uk (23.3m visits, up 47%) and entertainment news site variety.com (20.5m visits, up 45%).
This month, mainstream newsbrands and legacy names featured strongly among the fastest growing sites in the top 50, in a departure from recent months when the fastest growing sites have tended to be entertainment, foreign or more niche news sites.
When it comes to number of visits, CNN was the biggest site in the US in March (465.1m visits). It was followed by nytimes.com, msn.com, foxnews.com and Google News (196.3m visits).
The BBC was the only non-US site among the top ten, ranked in eighth place with 124.8m visits. The Daily Mail’s US site was the best-ranked British newspaper brand (in 12th place with 114.1m visits). Similarweb data includes traffic to all BBC sites and not just its news pages.
Half the sites in the top 50 saw more traffic this March compared to the same month last year.
Several conservative and right-wing sites, some of which benefited from traffic bumps during Trump’s tenure, saw audience falls in March. Newsmax.com’s visits were down 10% year-on-year (29m visits), while visits to theepochtimes.com were down 2% (25.4m visits). Thegatewaypundit.com (28.2m visits) and far-right blog zerohedge.com (25.1m visits) however saw traffic increases of 8% and 11% respectively.
January 2022
The Sun's US digital edition continued its recent run of audience growth in January with 94% year-on-year growth in visits.
The UK tabloid launched a US website in January 2020 and since then the site has seen significant growth recording its biggest audience yet this January. There were 21.4m visits to the-sun.com, placing it in 45th place in Press Gazette’s monthly ranking of the top 50 news sites in the US.
Only Atlanta BlackStar (34.2m visits- 128% increase year-on-year) outperformed the UK title for growth, according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb.
Celebrity news publication people.com was the only other site to see double-digit growth (74.6m visits - up 13%).
Among the ten biggest sites by audience size only MSN’s audience grew year-on-year. Microsoft’s news aggregator received 357.8m visits in January, up 1%.
The remainder of the household names saw traffic fall.
US websites will have benefited from large surges in traffic during the pandemic and the US election, with current President Biden taking office last January. Last January also saw the Capitol insurrection in Washington DC. Current traffic, while down year-on-year, is in the case of some big names including CNN and New York Times better this January than compared to the same month in 2019 and 2020 (pre-pandemic).
CNN, the biggest news site in the US, had 401m visits in January (down 42% year-on-year). The second-biggest site by volume of visits was MSN. Third-biggest site nytimes.com received 271.1m visits (down 33%). It was followed by Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News (262.4m visits - down 22%) and Google News (191.3m visits - down 27%). Of the top ten sites with the most visits, Bezos-owned Washington Post saw the biggest fall compared to January 2021 (126.2m visits - down 47%).
Mail Online (104.6m visits - down 5% year-on-year) narrowly beat the BBC (103.1m visits - down 20%) as the top-ranked British site in the US coming in tenth ahead of the UK public broadcaster in 11th place. Similarweb data includes traffic to all BBC sites and not just its news pages.
Theguardian.com was the only other British publisher in the top half of the ranking, coming in 15th position with 63.4m visits.
December 2021
The Sun's US digital edition was one of the fastest-growing news sites year-on-year in the US in December, recording growth of over 100%.
The UK tabloid's website received 18.3m visits in December - an increase of 111% compared to the same month in 2020, according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb. It was only outperformed by US title Atlanta Blackstar which increased its traffic by 125% year-on-year (35.8m visits).
The Sun and Atlanta Blackstar were among just seven sites that recorded year-on-year growth in visits as December saw another month of slow news traffic in the US. No other site saw visit growth comparable to the leading two players, with third fastest-growing site people.com seeing visits up 12% to 68.3m.
Only two of the top ten sites by number of visits saw year-on-year growth: MSN.com (359.5m visits - up 3%) and Murdoch-owned New York Post (108.5m visits - an increase of 1%).
Instead six of the ten biggest sites for volume of visits saw double-digit falls in traffic. Visits to the Washington Post website were down 32% to 126.3m, while visits to CNN were down 27% compared to last December at 399.4m.
News sites across the globe benefited from a surge in traffic in 2020 due to both the Covid-19 pandemic and the US presidential election. The effect of the latter is naturally likely to be have been more pronounced in the US. Data shows that traffic to leading US news sites is far below 2020 levels.
CNN retained its position as the number one online news source in the US in terms of visits, although Microsoft's news aggregator MSN is not far behind with 50m fewer visits.
Fox News remained the third most popular site in December (262.2m visits - down 10% year-on-year). Nytimes.com and Google News were the two remaining sites in the top five in a list that remained unchanged from November.
Mail Online was the top-ranked British site in the US coming in at 11th place (102.1m visits − down 4%), this month beating the BBC which had 98.8m visits in December. Similarweb data includes traffic to all BBC sites and not just its news pages.
Fox News is among just 12 sites that saw less traffic in December than November. While year-on-year comparisons reveal most sites did worse for traffic in 2021, most sites did better month-on-month in December.
November 2021
November was generally a slowdown for traffic for the leading US news sites, according to Press Gazette’s latest look at the biggest websites for news sites in America.
Of the top ten sites by number of visits in November, just two saw more traffic this November than in the same month last year. MSN.com had 342.6 million visits - up 1%, while Yahoo! Finance saw 174.1 million visits - an increase of 11%.
The rest saw double-digit falls in traffic compared to last November when many US news sites enjoyed a bumper month for traffic thanks to the country's presidential election.
Of the leading sites, nytimes.com saw the biggest fall in traffic (250.8 million visits - down 51% year-on-year). It was closely followed by CNN (384.1 million visits - down 50%) and washingtonpost.com (116.8 million visits - also down 50%).
Overall, CNN maintained its leading position as the number one news site in the US in terms of visits, according to data from Similarweb. It is however, closely followed by Microsoft's news aggregator MSN, which in recent months has been narrowing the gap on the broadcaster's digital news offering. In November, CNN counted 41.5 million more visits than MSN. In contrast in early 2019 CNN regularly saw almost twice the number of visits as MSN.
Fox News was the third most popular site in November (277 million visits - down 40%). Nytimes.com and Google News round out the list of the top five sites for visits.
No British sites made it into the top sites for volume of visits. The highest ranked British site, the BBC, came in 11th place with 94 million visits. Instead, all the leading sites were homegrown US brands.
After temporarily losing its top spot to The Sun in October, entertainment and lifestyle news site gazillions.com was once again the fastest growing online news site (48.2 million visits - up 581%).
It was followed in second place by Atlanta Black Star (26.4 million visits - an increase of 130%). Last month's fastest growing top 50 site, The-sun.com, came third with 18.5 million visits (a year-on-year increase of 61%). The UK tabloid's digital edition narrowly made it into the top 50 in 48th place.
A number of right-wing and far-right news sites continue to feature in the US top 50 in contrast to the UK list. Best-ranked is breitbart.com (50.7 million visits - 20th place ). Also making the top 50 are right-wing news aggregator drudgereport.com (42.2 million visits - 24th position), thegatewaypundit.com (31.5 million visits - 31st position), newsmax.com (30.2 million visits - 32nd position), zerohedge.com (23.8 million visits - 39th position), and theepochtimes.com (21.3 million visits - 42nd place). All these sites however, saw significant double-digit year-on-year falls in number of visits.
October 2021
UK tabloid The Sun was the fastest-growing news site in the US in October, according to Press Gazette’s latest look at the biggest websites for news sites in America.
- Top 50 most popular news websites in the UK (monthly ranking)
- Top 50 most popular news websites in the world (monthly ranking)
The-sun.com had 18.8 million visits (up 64% year-on-year) - ranking it number 48 in our top 50 list. It was followed in second place by Atlanta Black Star (26.6 million visits - an increase of 57%), according to data from web analytics firm, Similarweb.
Household names, US News (43.9 million visits - up 3%) and Microsoft’s news and app platform, MSN (341.8 million visits - up 2%) were also among the top ten fastest-growing sites.
Among the sites with the biggest falls in traffic compared to last October were politics-focused thehill.com (37.8 million visits - down 73%) and recent Axel Springer acquisition, politico.com (37 million visits - down 65%). Both sites likely benefited from a surge in interest for US election-related news last year, as would have Newsweek.com, the site that recorded the biggest year-on-year drop in October (21.7 million visits - down a staggering 149%).
Looking at the top ten sites for volume of visits, only MSN and Yahoo! Finance saw any year-on-year growth. MSN had 341.8 million visits - up 2%, while visits to Yahoo! Finance were up 7% compared to October 2020 at 164.7 million. The rest of the leading sites saw falls in traffic. The number of people accessing washingtonpost.com was down 53% (115.8 million visits), while the number of visits to cnn.com (364.3 million) was 38% lower than in the same month last year. Like-for-like comparisons will have been affected by the surge in traffic last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the US presidential election.
At the top, CNN continues to lead when it comes to the number of visits racked up by its mobile and desktop sites at 364.3 million. MSN has, however, eaten into CNN’s dominance in recent months. In October, CNN counted just 22.4 million more visits than MSN’s total of 341.8 million. In January 2019 (the earliest date for which we have data), CNN led MSN by a margin of 215.5 million visits. The Microsoft platform has seen its audience grow by over 40% since January 2019. Fox News - once second to CNN - is now the third most popular site in terms of visits (257.2 million visits in October).
The most popular news sites in the US tend to be homegrown. The BBC is the best-ranked international site with its two domains (BBC.com and bbc.co.uk) together counting 96.9 million visits in October.
September 2021
Once again celebrity and entertainment news site Gazillions.com came out on top as the fastest-growing site in the US.
There were 19.5 million visits to the new entertainment site - an increase of 870% - according to data from web analytics firm Similarweb.
It was followed by standardnews.com, which is owned by US-based Spine Media (32 million visits - up 440%).
As seen in previous months, right-wing sites also performed well in terms of year-on-year growth in visits. Third-place theepochtimes.com had 19.6 million visits (up 162%) while there were 29.5 million visits to pro-Trump nexsmax.com (up 144%). Both sites score badly when it comes to website rating tool NewsGuard's trust scores.
The highest-ranked British site for year-on-year growth was The Sun. The UK tabloid's digital edition the-sun.com was the fifth fastest growing news site in the US counting 16 million visits - a year-on-year increase of 65%.
Recent Axel Springer acquisition Politico.com saw the largest year-on-year fall in traffic (37.8 million visits - down 42%). As in recent months, theatlantic.com has also seen year-on-year traffic declines (22.7 million visits - down 40%) while visits to politics-focused thehill.com were down 39% to 38.3 million. Like-for-like comparisons will be impacted by the surge in traffic to coronavirus-related content last year.
When it comes to monthly growth in visits, standardnews.com came out on top with an increase of 293% on the number of visits in August. Only four other sites (theverge.com, usmagazine.com, cbsnews.com and the-sun.com) saw monthly traffic growth although of far less proportions.
The website of cable broadcaster CNN continues to have by far the biggest audience share overall and enjoys a similar position of dominance as the BBC in the UK. Cnn.com was the most visited site in September with 378.7 million visits. It was followed by MSN.com (329.3 million visits), foxnews.com (266.3 million) and nytimes.com (252.7 million visits). Press Gazette has ranked MSN and Yahoo! News for the first time this month.
The BBC’s sites was the only British site in the top ten when it came to volume of visits. Similarweb analytics however include visits to BBC’s main homepage - not just its news page.
As in previous months, only a minority (15 in September) of the top 50 sites saw year-on-year traffic increases.
August 2021
Celebrity and entertainment news site Gazillions.com was again the fastest-growing site in the US, according to Press Gazette’s analysis of traffic to the most popular English-language news websites.
Right-wing sites also performed well in terms of year-on-year growth in visits.
Gazillions.com, which launched at the end of 2019, was the single fastest-growing site according to data from web analytics firm Similarweb. In the year to August 2021 visits were up more than 1,262% (a more than 10-fold increase) from 2.1 million in August 2020 to 29.2 million in August 2021 as the new site picked up audience.
It was followed in second place by theepochtimes.com (21.1 million visits - up 186%) and pro-Trump nexsmax.com (33.1 million visits - up 166%). Both sites have regularly appeared among the leading five sites for year-on-year growth in our ranking and their growth reflects the increasing audience to many right-leaning sites in recent years.
The US digital edition of British tabloid The Sun also stayed in the top five for another month. There were 15.9 million visits (an increase of 38%) to the-sun.com.
At the foot of the list, sites that saw large year-on-year falls in traffic included forbes.com (56.1 million visits - down 38%), politico.com (46.1 million visits - down 36%), cbsnews.com (25.7 million visits - down 36%) and thehill.com (45 million visits - down 33%). Like-for-like comparisons will be impacted by the surge in traffic to coronavirus-related content last year.
When it comes to monthly growth in visits, gazillions.com also came out on top with an increase of 65% on the number of visits in July. Reuters.com also performed well with 32.9 million visits (an increase of 14%) as did atlantablackstar.com which specialises in news and culture aimed at a black audience (25.3 million visits in August -up 14%).
The website of cable broadcaster CNN continues to have by far the biggest audience share overall. Cnn.com was the most visited site in June with 423.5 million visits. This was followed by foxnews.com (284.9 million visits). and nytimes.com (271.1 million visits).
The BBC’s sites and Mail Online were the two British sites in the top ten for volume of visits. Similarweb analytics however include visits to BBC’s main homepage - not just its news page.
As in previous months, only a minority (12 in August) of the top 50 sites saw year-on-year traffic increases. Unlike recent months however, mainstream news sites featured in the list this time with the-sun.com, apnews.com, usnews.com, finance.yahoo.com, wsj.com, newsweek.com and reuters.com recording year-on-year growth.
July 2021
For the second month in a row, recently launched celebrity and lifestyle site Gazillions.com was the fastest growing site in the US, while right-wing sites also performed well in terms of year-on-year growth in visits.
Gazillions.com which brands itself as news focused on “pop culture, luxurious lifestyle, and global entertainment” was the single fastest-growing site according to data from web analytics firm Similarweb. In the year to July 2021. Visits were up more than 542% (over 5 times) from 692,361 in June 2020 to 2.8 million in July 2021.
It was followed in second place by theepochtimes.com (23.5 million visits - up 72%) and pro-Trump nexsmax.com (33.5 million visits - up 165%). Both sites were among the leading five sites for year-on-year growth in June’s ranking. Their growth reflects a surge in visits to right-leaning sites as a whole over the last year.
This month, the US digital edition of British tabloid The Sun, also entered the top five. The-sun.com racked up 18.1 million visits (up 54%), putting it in fifth place for year-on-year growth in visits although it came in at 47 out of 50 for volume of visits.
At the foot of the list, the BBC’s digital properties BBC.com and BBC.co.uk saw the biggest relative year-on-year fall in traffic with visits down 18% to 108.2 million - although BBC sites did well in terms of overall number of visits, coming in at six out of 50). Other sites that saw large falls in traffic compared to July 2020 were Forbes.com (visits decreased by 46% to 53.2 million) and political news site the hill.com (visits were down by 39% to 43 million). Like-for-like comparisons will be impacted by the surge in traffic to coronavirus-related content last year.
When it comes to monthly growth in visits, atlantablackstar which specialises in news and culture aimed at a black audience was the fastest-growing site in July 2021 compared to June 2021. The site which takes an African American perspective on politics racked up 22.2 million visits in July (up 16%). The-sun.com also did well in terms of month-on-month growth with visits up 29% to 18.1 million. Gazillions.com, despite showing strong year-on-year growth saw a huge month-on-month traffic fall in July. There were 52% fewer visits to the site in July than June.
Despite the growth of some smaller players, the website of cable broadcaster CNN continues to have by far the biggest audience share overall. Cnn.com was the most visited site in June with 411.7 million visits. This was followed by foxnews.com (274.2 million visits). and nytimes.com (261.4 million visits), which have in previous months jostled for second and third places. The sites of two British publishers also made it into the top 10 leading sites for volume of visits. BBC.co.uk and BBC.com racked up 108.2 million visits, while there were 97.5 million visits to dailymail.co.uk.
There were significantly fewer visits to the current top 50 sites in July this year compared to the same month in 2020. The leading 50 sites this month counted a combined 3.1 billion visits - a decrease of 19% compared to the combined 3.9 million visits to the leading 50 sites in July 2020. As was the case in June, only 10 of the top 50 sites saw year-on-year traffic increases. Most of these were niche sites catering to specialist audiences or sites with a strong conservative or right-wing bias.
June 2021
Recently launched celebrity and lifestyle site Gazillions.com was the fastest growing site in the US in June with right-leaning news sites also making strong showings.
Gazillions.com, which launched in late 2019, was the number one fastest growing site, according to data from web analytics company Similarweb. Visits were up over 5,000% (a more than 50-fold increase) from 692,361 in June 2020 to 37.1m in June 2021.
The rest of the top five sites for year-on-year growth were right-leaning sites that have seen considerable traffic increases in recent years.
The second fastest growing site, pro-Trump Newsmax, saw visits increase by 196% to 31.7m, while visits to next in place theepochtimes.com were up 186% to 22.5m. Alternative video news platform bitchute.com saw a 109% increase in audience to 20.9m, while visits to the fifth fastest growing site, thegatewaypundit.com, increased to 33.4m – up 61%.
At the foot of the list, mainstream sites featured heavily among the outlets with the biggest year-on-year falls in traffic. Forbes.com saw the biggest fall in traffic as visits decreased by 46% to 51.6m. Meanwhile, visits to The Atlantic’s site were down by 44% to 21m and visits to cbsnews.com were down by 43% to 26.3m.
Like-for-like comparisons will be impacted by the huge traffic to coronavirus-related content a year ago.
When it comes to monthly growth in visits, Gazillions.com again came out on top. Visits to the site were 141% higher than in May, when there were 15.3m visits. Tech news site theverge.com also saw more traffic in June with visits up 18% compared with 27.5m visits the previous month.
Thegatewaypundit.com was the only other site that saw a more than 10% traffic increase compared with May.
Despite the growth of some smaller players, the website of cable broadcaster CNN continues to have by far the biggest audience share overall. CNN.com was the most visited site in June with 392.5m visits. This was followed by nytimes.com (257.5m visits) and foxnews.com (257.3m visits), which has significantly narrowed the gap on the site of the New York Times.
UK sites BBC.co.uk and BBC.com also made it into the top 10 with 108.1m visits, as did dailymail.co.uk with 92m visits in June.
While CNN.com regularly tops US lists for number of visits, its lead over its closest competitors is smaller than the BBC’s relative lead over competing news sources in the UK, according to our analysis.
Taken as whole, there were significantly fewer visits to the current top 50 sites this month compared with June 2020. June’s leading 50 sites counted a combined 3.1bn visits compared with 3.8bn visits in the same month last year (a decrease of 16%).
Only ten of the top 50 sites saw year-on-year traffic increases. These were gazillions.com, newsmax.com, theepochtimes.com, bitchute.com, thegatewaypundit.com, usnews.com, finance.yahoo.com, apnews.com, people.com and usmagazine.com.
All 50 sites combined, however, saw slightly more traffic in June (3.09m visits) compared with May (3.06m) – although the increase in visits is less than 1%.
April 2021
Right-wing news sites saw the biggest year-on-year growth in the US in April.
The Epoch Times was the single fastest growing site according to data from web analytics company Similarweb. Visits to another pro-Trump site, Newsmax, increased by 171% to 29.4m, while visits to right-wing video platform BitChute were up 150% to 19.3m.
Also in the top five for year-on-year growth was far-right site thegatewaypundit.com, whose founder and editor-in-chief, Jim Hoft, was permanently suspended from Twitter in February for sharing false news about the US election. The site saw visits increase by 41% to 25.5m.
Among the sites with the biggest year-on-year falls in traffic were several mainstream national news brands and business titles. Forbes.com saw the biggest fall in traffic as visits decreased by 54% to 53.2m. Meanwhile, visits to The Atlantic’s site were down by 52% to 21m and visits to newsweek.com were down by 50% to 22.7m. Like for like comparisons will be impacted by the huge traffic to coronavirus-related content a year ago.
When it comes to monthly growth in visits, investigative tabloid RawStory came out on top. Visits to the site were 4% higher at 17.7m in April. The New York Post and the Chicago Tribune and the Daily Wire also saw small traffic increases of 1%.
The website of cable broadcaster CNN has by far the biggest audience share overall. Cnn.com was the most visited site in April with 410.9m visits. This was followed by nytimes.com (273.9m visits) and foxnews.com (244.1m visits). British sites BBC.co.uk and BBC.com also made it into the top 10 with 113.1m visits, as did dailymail.co.uk with 89.1m visits in April.
Taken as whole, there were significantly fewer visits to the current top 50 sites that month compared with April 2020. The current top 50 sites racked up a combined 3bn visits in April compared with 4.1bn visits in the same month last year. The only sites among the top 50 that saw year-on-year traffic increases were theepochtimes.com, newsmax.com, bitchute.com, usmagazine.com, thegatewaypundit.com, apnews.com, usnews.com, startribune.com and people.com.
Compared with last month, there were 7% fewer visits to the leading 50 sites combined in April (3.1bn compared with 3.3bn in March).
Note: Press Gazette will be updating this page on a monthly basis. See our previous coverage here:
Biggest news websites in the world archive data
- March 2021: Top 50 news websites in the world for March 2021: Times and Telegraph two fastest growers
- February 2021: Top 50 largest news websites in the world: Sputnik, Drudge and Fox see biggest traffic falls in February
- December 2020: Top 50 largest news websites in the world: Surge in traffic to Epoch Times and other right-wing sites
- November 2020: Top 50 largest news websites in the world revealed: Controversial pro-Trump sites were fastest-growing in US election month
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