The biggest increases in traffic were at USA Today (34%), CNN (33%), Newsweek (21%), Fox News (20%) and The New York Times (15%). It nonetheless remained the most-visited news site in the US, a position it has held since Similarweb updated its data model in June and pushed the site ahead of The New York Times. It was followed by The Independent (down 12.4% month-on-month) and Business Insider (64.3 million, down 11.8%).

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 Sweden Casino 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.

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Yahoo Finance and People both shuffled up the board one spot to sixth and seventh place respectively, pushing the New York Post (150 million visits, down 7% year-on-year) down to eighth. The New York Times maintained its position in second place, with 361.8 million visits, and Fox News was third on 293 million. After Athlon the fastest-growing site in the US year-on-year was The Daily Dot (up 174.2% year-on-year to 29.2 million), which entered the top 50 for the first time in August.

• At the start of October the site deployed a new paywall, which does not appear to have immediately hurt its web visits.
• Celebrity-focused newsbrand People.com was the fastest-growing news website in the US in May, according to Press Gazette’s latest ranking.
• 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%).
• 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.
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The Gateway Pundit and another site supportive of Donald Trump, Breitbart, were also among the fastest growers year-on-year, up 54% and 26% respectively. The biggest year-on-year decline in the top ten was seen at aggregator MSN (196.4 million, down 8%) and USA Today (also down 8%). The shallowest fall in the top ten was seen at People magazine (150.6 million), which nonetheless lost 5% of its traffic.

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%.

The second-fastest annual growth was at climate site The Cooldown (25.5 million, up 562%) and the third-fastest was at Newsweek (172%), which was also the fastest-growing site among the top ten domains. Year-on-year, however, Athlon (athlonsports.com) saw the greatest growth in the top 50, drawing in 697% more visits in July 2024 than in July 2023. The company says the update has improved the accuracy of the data, particularly with regard to smaller websites.

September was a busier news month, including the assassination of right-wing activist and podcaster Charlie Kirk. Syndication website MSN saw the biggest drop year on year among the top ten by more than a third (39.5% to 144 million visits). Athlon Sports followed Forbes in year-on-year traffic decline with a drop in visits of 48% to 290.3 million, along with AP News (down 46% to 78.5 million visits). Forbes CEO Sherry Phillips told Press Gazette last month the brand has lost traffic to articles it was previously known for, such as “Who’s the richest person in the world?

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).