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NBC News, similarly, grew its traffic 112.5% compared with last year, while USA Today managed growth of 65.5%. The biggest fallers compared with December 2023 among the whole top 50 were UK tabloid The Sun (23 million, down 55%), The Los Angeles Times (19.4 million, down 33.2%) and Huffpost (43.6 million, down 21%). Among the nine websites to lose traffic month-on-month, five saw decreases of 2.1% or lower.
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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. The biggest increases in traffic were at USA Today (34%), CNN (33%), Newsweek (21%), Fox News (20%) and The New York Times (15%).
Among the top ten sites in the US, three were up compared to June 2024 (New York Times, People, BBC and Google News) and seven saw an increase compared to May. This is despite The Independent seeing the biggest year-on-year fall in traffic, down 56% to 16.4 million. In July, BBC saw a 15% month-on-month drop in views following the launch of a dynamic paywall for users in the US at the end of June. 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).
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 Lyxcasinon 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.
- 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.
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- Visits to bbc.com in the US were down 15% in July as the British public service broadcaster introduced a paywall to users in America.
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. The BBC was up 27% month on month and 19% year on year to a total of 118.6 million visits in the US in September, making it the eighth biggest site by this metric.
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 top 50, Newsweek, which has topped the list for growth in several of the past months, was only the third fastest growing site year-on-year despite another strong month. While the New York Times remained the biggest newsbrand in the US by number of visits followed by CNN, a strong monthly performance from Fox News led it to overtake MSN (261.3 million visits) into third place, pushing MSN into fourth.