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 terms of annual growth Athlon Sports and The Cooldown again topped the charts, with both seeing greater than 300% year-on-year growth. The New York Times extended its lead over CNN has the most popular news website in the US according to Press Gazette’s latest top-50 ranking. The US Sun has been affected by Google’s algorithm changes and reduced the size of its newsroom in September to target fewer key content areas. A third of the top 50 lost traffic year-over-year, with the largest decline seen at the US version of the UK’s un-paywalled Sun tabloid (23 million, down 63.8% year-over-year). Fox News (278.4 million, down 3.7%), aggregator MSN (214.3 million, down 8.2%) and the New York Post (127.9 million, down 8.7%) lost traffic, meanwhile.
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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%). However they are also in spite of an eventful February for US news which included an airplane crash in Washington DC and an Oval Office row between Donald Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Since November 2023 Similarweb has excluded the figures for edition.cnn.com in its report to Press Gazette since they are counted under the main domain. The smallest increases were seen at the AP (4%), MSN (3%) and CNN (2%), while the New York Post lost a negligible proportion of traffic. Fox News and Yahoo Finance (155.9 million) were respectively flat and up 3% compared with last year.
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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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. The biggest increases were at The New York Times (up 9% year on year to 474.5 million visits) and CNN (up 14% month on month to 356.7 million). Many of the biggest news websites in the US moved back into growth in June, according to the latest data from Similarweb. The biggest decline in the top ten was at syndication website MSN, down 10% month on month and 38% year on year to 145.2 million visits in fifth place.
AP News grew 44.6% year on year to 110.9 million monthly visits, according to Similarweb data. Legal battles between AP News and Donald Trump have not done the news agency’s popularity any harm as it was one of the fastest-growing news websites in the US in April 2025. Mail Online, known as DailyMail.com in the US, also saw a steep traffic drop in May falling 32% year on year to 86.9 million visits per month in the US.
- 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.
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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.
- More than half (29) of the 50 biggest news websites in the US saw a month-on-month decline.
- And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, that will help power its first-of-its kind local news program to support the U.S. local news ecosystem.
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The UK-based Sun was the fastest faller, down 59% year on year to 23 million visits per month, according to Similarweb estimates. The biggest year-on-year increases were at The Arena Group’s Men’s Journal, up 309% compared to June 2024 to 25.1 million visits, and Substack, up 57% to 73.9 million visits. The biggest month-on-month increase in June was at The Times of Israel, which saw its visits almost double to 23.7 million in the US (up 98%). The other newsbrands to report month-on-month growth were Newsbreak (up 6%), SFGate (4%), USA Today (3%), and LA Times and India Times (both 1%). Similarly six sites reported month-on-month growth for August, with this hugely increasing to 35 in September.
The biggest riser already on the charts was progressive news site Raw Story, which climbed eight spots to 37th place on the back of a 24% month-on-month traffic increase to 33.2 million. The contraction is particularly pronounced among the top ten US news sites by traffic, where eight publishers saw visits drop compared to July. Going the opposite direction, however, was the US outpost of fellow British publisher The Sun (22.2 million visits), which dropped 15 places to 50th on the back of 34.9% month-on-month and 65.1% year-on-year traffic declines. Athlon Sports (up 218.4% year-on-year to 35 million) was the fastest riser in the ranks of the top 50, jumping eight places to 33rd on the back of 18% month-on-month traffic growth, the second most growth of any publisher in the top 50. Also possibly reflecting interest in the US presidential election, the fastest monthly growth among the top 50 was seen at Real Clear Politics, where visits were up nearly 40% compared with September. Among the broader top 50 news sites in the US, sports news site athlonsports.com (34.7 million) continued its reign as the fastest-growing publisher, nearly quadrupling its web visits compared to October 2023.
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 https://www.emsc.eu/about_us/who_we_are/ (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.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department in Arizona has detained a person of interest connected with Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance, according to two law enforcement sources. Family seeks answers in death of newlywed who disappeared in 2005 while on Mediterranean honeymoon cruise. A NASA mission is underway to map the heliosphere, which is a huge protective bubble around the solar system that was created by the sun. NASA plans to test the planned leak repair with a second dress rehearsal fueling test later this month. The new crew will replace four station fliers who returned to Earth ahead of schedule last month due to a medical issue.
