Top 50 biggest news websites in the world: Newsweek doubles visits year-on-year in March

Two British newsbrands also featured in the fastest growing sites month-on-month. Visits to the website of Reach’s tabloid brand Express.co.uk were up 17% compared to February to reach 76.8 million, while visits to The Independent were up 12% to 109.5 million.

Among the ten biggest sites by number of visits in March, fastest-growing year-on-year was India Times. It was followed by The New York Times (666 million visits, up 11%) and Yahoo Finance (245.9 million, up 5%).

The remainder of the ten biggest sites slumped year-on-year, with Fox News seeing the sharpest decline (269.4 million visitors, down 18%), followed by aggregator MSN (676 million, down 11%).

However all top ten sites grew month-on-month. The biggest increase in visits was for India Times, followed by New York Times (up 10% month-on-month) and CNN (539.9 million, up 9%). UK newsbrands The Daily Mail (369.3 million, up 8% compared to February) and The Guardian (349.7 million, up 7%) also saw growth of more than 5% in their number of visits.

The BBC was again top of the table for visits (992.4 million) although it remained below the one billion visit mark for the second month in a row. It was followed by MSN, New York Times, CNN and Google News (375.6 million). The order of the top five is unchanged from last month.

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 with a less news-based focus.

Continue reading for previous months’ coverage of the world’s top 50 websites for news:

February 2024

India Times was the fastest-growing top ten news website in the world in February, according to Press Gazette’s updated ranking.

Visits to the Indian daily newspaper’s website were up 48% year-on-year to 234.5 million, possibly due to increased interest in news about the country given India’s upcoming general election in April. 

It was followed by Yahoo Finance (241.4 million visits, up 18% year-on-year) and The New York Times (606.7 million visits, up 10%) which were second and third fastest growing among the ten biggest sites by number of visits, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb. 

The Guardian made a smaller gain of 2% (327.4 million visits) and the rest of the top ten reported declines compared to February last year. 

Microsoft news aggregator MSN (642.2 million visits, down 14% year-on-year) and Fox News (262.9 million, down 16%) were the two top ten sites to see double-digit drops. 

Month-on-month all of the top ten sites except the India Times (up 3%) saw less traffic in February compared to January. Fox News (down 16%) and the Daily Mail’s website (343.6 million visits, down 10% month-on-month) saw the biggest falls. 

Yahoo Finance (down 1% month-on-month) and New York Times (down 5%) also slumped compared to January despite growing year-on-year.

Fastest-growing year-on-year among the whole top 50 was again Newsweek (79.5 million visits, up 114%) which similarly saw strong growth in its home market of the US this month. Newsweek was followed by Indian financial newsbrand Livemint (71.8 million, up 90%) and Al Jazeera (53.4 million, up 55%), repeating the order of the fastest-growing sites year-on-year in January. 

Month-on-month Newsweek (up 7% compared to January) was beaten by another Indian site, Indian Express (96.8 million, up 9% month-on-month). It was followed by GB News (55.2 million, up 4%) which entered the global top 50 for the first time last month. 

The BBC was again top of the table for visits (963.4 million) although it fell below the one billion visit mark it has topped in recent months. It was followed by MSN (642.2 million), New York Times (606.7 million), CNN (497.7 million) and Google News (360.9 million). The order of the top five is unchanged from last month.

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 with a less news-based focus.

Continue reading for previous months’ coverage of the world’s top 50 websites for news:

January 2024

CNN was the fastest-growing top 10 news website in the world month-on-month in January, according to Press Gazette’s updated ranking.

Visits to the US cable broadcaster’s site were up 7% to reach 537.2 million compared to December, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb. It reverses last month’s pattern for CNN which was the only top ten sites in December to see visits down, falling 2% between November and December.

Second fastest-growing among the biggest ten sites by number of global visits was The Guardian (360.9 million, up 7% month-on-month), while Microsoft aggregator MSN (699.6 million, up 5%) was third. All top ten sites saw month-on-month growth.

Year-on-year all of the top ten sites saw audience drops however, The Guardian, New York Times (636.3 million visits) and Yahoo Finance saw comparatively small drops in visits of less than 1% compared to January 2023. MSN saw the biggest slump in traffic for the third month in a row (down 23% year-on-year), followed by Fox News (294.8 million visits) and CNN which were both down 16% year-on-year.

Fastest-growing year-on-year among the whole top 50 was again Newsweek (74.1 million visits, up 83%) – although its traffic was lower than December. Newsweek was followed by Indian financial newsbrand Livemint (77 million, up 76%) and Al Jazeera (57.8 million, up 56%).

Month-on-month UK-based news aggregator newsnow.co.uk was top for growth with visits up 40% compared to December (58.4 million visits). It was followed by GB News (53 million, up 21%) which entered the top 50 for the first time in 50th position, and Business Insider (107.7 million, up 21%).

The BBC remained top of the table for visits and was the only site to top the 1 billion visit-threshold as in past months (1.1 billion visits), followed by MSN, New York Times, CNN and Google News (393.4 million). The order of the top five is unchanged from last month.

December 2023

All the world’s top ten English-language news websites saw year-on-year traffic drops in December for the second consecutive month, according to Press Gazette’s updated ranking. 

The drops may be the result of updates rolled out by Google to its search algorithm since September, which have tended to downgrade SEO-explainer style articles. 

Among the top ten news sites by number of visits, Microsoft aggregator MSN saw the biggest slump in traffic for the second month in a row (663.8 million visits, down 25% year-on-year), followed by Google News (381 million) and CNN (500.9 million) both down by 17%, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb. 

Fox News (286.6 million visits, down 14% year-on-year), Daily Mail (376.4 million, down 13%) and the BBC (1 billion, down 12%) also saw double-digit falls. 

Month-on-month the top ten news sites fared better with all but CNN (down 2% month-on-month) seeing their traffic increase or remain stable. The Daily Mail saw the biggest month-on-month growth in visits at 8%, followed by the New York Times (up 7%, 612.3 million visits). 

Fastest-growing year-on-year among the whole top 50 was Newsweek (83.6 million visits, up 101%), which knocked The Times of Israel, the fastest-growing news website in the world in November and October, out of its top position. The Times of Israel also fell out of the top 50 altogether in December). 

Newsweek was followed by Indian financial newsbrand Mint (72.8 million, up 60%) and Gannett’s USA Today (161 million, up 30%). 

The BBC remained top of the table for visits, followed by MSN, The New York Times, CNN and Google News. 

November 2023

Most of the world’s major English news websites saw steep traffic drops in November, possibly as a result of a series of Google updates.

Since September, updates rolled out by Google have included a “helpful content update” deemed to have been “noticeably more impactful” than the last of its kind in December 2022, an October core update and another in November, and a reviews update also this month. Websites with a traditional focus on scale, often built with the aid of SEO explainer-style articles, appear to be among the hardest hit by the updates.

All of the top ten news sites tracked by Press Gazette saw double-digit falls in traffic despite the busy news agenda. Among this group the largest year-on-year slumps were seen by MSN (down 28% year-on-year), Fox News (273.8 million, down 26%), CNN (down 25%), and Google News (down 19%).

Among the whole top 50, The Times of Israel was the fastest-growing news website in the world for a second consecutive month in November. Visits to the English-language Israeli news site were up 429% year-on-year to 56.3 million. Second fastest-growing was Newsweek (66.8 million, up 71%), while third fastest-growing was Qatari newsbrand Al Jazeera (up 69% to 70.9 million). Like The Times of Israel, Al Jazeera very likely saw its audience surge due to high interest in news linked to the situation in Palestine and Israel.

Month-on-month the status of the top ten news sites by number of visits echoed that for year-on-year changes with none seeing an increase in traffic when compared to October. Among the top 50, fastest-growing month-on-month was Newsweek (up 21%) followed some way behind by India Times (up 2%). 

October 2023

The Times of Israel was the fastest growing news website in the world in October, according to Press Gazette’s latest ranking.

The English language Jerusalem-based site saw visits increase 604% year-on-year to 64.2 million and entered our top-50 ranking for the first time in 42nd place, according to digital intelligence platform, Similarweb.

It was followed by another new entrant, Al Jazeera, which was this month’s second-fastest news site with visits up 147% to 102.9 million, which propelled the Qatari newsbrand to rank 27.

Both increases are likely linked to the increase in demand for news about the Middle East following the outbreak of conflict between Israel and Gaza in October.

They were followed by AP (117.1 million visits, up 63% year-on-year), US broadcaster ABC News (62.5 million visits, up 61%) and The Independent (104.9 million, up 49%).

Overall 29 sites in the top 50 reported year-on-year growth in October, while 21 saw a traffic slump. All but five news websites (The Sun, the Mirror, Indian Express, India Today and Indian financial news site, Livemint) saw traffic grow month-on-month, which may be linked to October’s increased interest in news such as the war between Israel and Hamas.

Among the ten biggest news websites by number of visits during the month, fastest-growing was CNN which saw visits up 25% year-on-year to 805.2 million, Fox News (up 17% to 331.8 million) and Daily Mail (up 7% to 415.1 million). (Similarweb data to dailymail.co.uk captures redirects from other Daily Mail country domains).

The BBC in contrast saw a slight year-on-year fall in traffic, down 4% to 1.2 billion visits. Similarweb’s data includes visits to all the BBC’s content and not just news. The Guardian also saw traffic fall by 7% to 376.9 million.

Aggregators Google News and MSN again saw the biggest slumps in visits in the top ten. Visits to Google News were down 15% to 398.1 million, while the Microsoft news aggregator was down 16% to 665.6 million visits on the same metric.

While the BBC remained the top newsbrand in the world by number of visits, CNN once again overtook MSN to regain second place, pushing MSN into third place. The New York Times and Mail Online rounded out the top five, remaining unchanged from September, as did the rest of the top ten.

Other than new entrant The Times of Israel, Reuters saw the biggest jump in rank, climbing seven places to 23rd (113.2 million visits), followed by ABC News. The Mirror saw the biggest fall, down seven places to rank 30th.

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 with a less news-based focus.

Continue reading for previous months’ coverage of the world’s top 50 websites for news:

September 2023

None of the ten biggest news websites in the world increased their traffic year-on-year in September.

Visits to CNN were up 6% year-on-year to 703.3 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb, while visits to dailymail.co.uk were up 3% to 427.7 million. (Similarweb data to dailymail.co.uk captures redirects from other Daily Mail country domains).

Among September’s top ten, Google News saw the biggest slump in visits (371 million, down 20% compared to last September), followed by another news aggregator, Microsoft’s MSN (639.7 million, down 15%) and The Guardian (329.8 million, down 14%).

Mail Online recorded the smallest fall among the ten biggest sites by number of visits (392 million, down 5%). Similarweb data to dailymail.co.uk captures redirects from other Daily Mail country domains. CNN saw the second smallest fall at 6% (608.6 million visits).

Among the whole top 50, last month’s fastest-growing news site AP News was second by that metric in September (92.3 million visits, up 47%). Fastest-growing was Indian financial news site Livemint (69.9 million visits, up 49%). It was among four Indian newsbrands among the ten fastest-growing sites in the top 50, along with timesofindia.com, thehindu.com and hindustantimes.com.

The tenth fastest-growing site in the ranking was British newsbrand The Independent, with 101.9 million visits (up 13%). In August The Independent was the sixth fastest-growing site in our ranking with visits up 36% year-on-year.

The BBC retained its spot as the biggest newsbrand in the world with a combined one billion visits to the bbc.com and bbc.co.uk domains, although this does include visitors to its entertainment and other content.

Last month’s second placed site, CNN, dropped down to third, changing places with MSN which resumed its previous second place position. The New York Times (569.4 million visits) and Mail Online rounded out the top five.

Hindustantimes.com, People and RT.com made the biggest jumps in rank compared to August, each climbing four places. Express.co.uk made the biggest fall, dropping eight places to rank 35.

August 2023

The remainder of the world’s biggest English-language news sites by number of visits recorded a fall in traffic compared to last August. Google News saw the biggest slump (407.7 million visits, down 17% year-on-year), followed by the site of US cable broadcaster Fox News (290 million, down 9%).

Among the whole top 50, AP News was the fastest-growing news site in August (97.9 million visits, up 51%), narrowly knocking CBS News which has seen a recent strong run of growth off the top spot. Visits to the US broadcasting giant’s site were up 49% year-on-year to 77.5 million.

Two Indian news sites – financial news site livemint.com (58.6 million, up 41%) and timesofindia.com (210.3 million, up 40%) – and nbcnews.com (210.3 million, up 40%) rounded out the top five biggest-growers.

British newsbrand The Independent also made the top ten for growth with visits up 36% year-on-year to 114.2 million, making it the sixth fastest-growing site in our ranking.

The BBC was again the biggest newsbrand in the world with a combined 1.1 billion visits to the bbc.com and bbc.co.uk domains, although this does include visitors to its entertainment and other content.

CNN rose one place up the ranking to take second place from MSN (690.5 million visits), which fell to third. The order of the remainder of the top ten remained unchanged with the New York Times (618.8 million visits) and Mail Online completing the top five.

AP made the biggest jump in rank, climbing 11 places to 28.

July 2023

Mail Online was one of only two top-ten news websites worldwide to grow by number of visits in July, according to Press Gazette’s monthly ranking of global online traffic.

Visits to dailymail.co.uk were up 3% year-on-year to 429.6 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb. CNN was the only other top ten website in the world to grow (643.4 million visits, up 1%).

Google News was the top ten site that saw the biggest fall in traffic (397.7 million visits, down 19%), while the New York Times continued to slump. Visits to the legacy publisher’s site were down 6% compared to last July at 596.8 million, although the fall was less marked than in recent months. Last month, the New York Times saw visits fall by 15% to 579.6 million.

Among the top 50 as a whole, CBS News was again the fastest-growing news site as in June. Visits to the US broadcasting giant’s site were up 67% year-on-year to 82.5 million.

It was followed by Indian financial news website Mint (56.9 million visits, up 61%), which re-entered the top 50 this month in 43rd position, while the Associated Press (78.6 million, up 50%) was third-fastest growing.

British news website independent.co.uk (121.6 million visits, up 33%) was the sixth-fastest growing. Along with the BBC and The Sun, The Independent is among the UK newsbrands that have recently ramped up their US presence. Last month thetelegraph.co.uk also featured among the ten fastest-growing sites in our ranking, although it did not reappear on that list in July.

The BBC maintained its position as the biggest newsbrand in the world with a combined 1.1 billion visits to the bbc.com and bbc.co.uk domains, although this does include visitors to its entertainment and other content.

It was followed by Microsoft news aggregator msn.com (689.1 million visits), CNN, the New York Times and Mail Online which earlier this year overtook Google News to enter the top five.

The position of all the sites in the top ten remained unchanged from June. Across the whole top 50, the Express made one of the biggest jumps, climbing five places compared to June (98.6 million visits, rank 27). It was second only by this metric to UK news aggregator Newsnow.co.uk (92.3 million visits, rank 30) which was up seven places compared to June.

June 2023

The news division of US broadcaster CBS was the fastest-growing English-language news website in the world in June, according to Press Gazette’s monthly ranking of global online traffic.

It was followed by apnews.com (87 million visits, up 53%), which recently signed a deal with Open AI to license its archive, and timesofindia.com (194.3 million, up 35%).

Eighth-fastest growing was British news website independent.co.uk (115.9 million visits, up 21%). Along with the BBC and The Sun, The Independent is among the UK newsbrands that have recently invested in their US presence.

Fellow British news website Telegraph.co.uk (67.9 million visits, up 21% year-on-year) was also among the fastest-growing websites in the top 50, in tenth spot.

Among the ten biggest websites by number of visits in June, CNN saw the biggest growth. Visits to CNN.com and its non-US domain edition.cnn.com were up 7% year-on-year in June (708.4 million visits), in contrast to its performance in May when visits fell 9%.

While no top ten newsbrand saw traffic grow in May, the picture in June was more mixed. Among the large news sites that saw their traffic increase, CNN was followed by Microsoft aggregator MSN (733.9 million visits, up 4%), the BBC (1.1 billion visits, up 3% year-on-year) and the Guardian (349.3 million visits, up 1%).

Google News saw the largest fall in traffic among the top ten. Visits to the site of the tech giant’s news aggregator were down 18% year-on-year (392.2 million visits), while the New York Times (579.6 million visits, down 15%) and Yahoo Finance (227.1 million visits, down 14%) also saw double-digit falls. Nytimes.com has seen a sustained year-on-year fall in visits in 2023, according to Similarweb figures.

The BBC maintained its position as the biggest newsbrand in the world. It was followed by msn.com, CNN, the New York Times and Mail Online (409.6 million visits) which last month overtook Google News to enter the top five.

The position of all the sites in the top ten remained unchanged from May.

Cbsnews.com and newsnow.co.uk made the biggest jumps in rank, climbing six places each compared to May. UK-based aggregator News Now was also the biggest climber last month.

Meanwhile cosmopolitan.com (down seven places) and businessinsider.com (down nine) made the largest falls.

May 2023

None of the top ten English-language newsbrands in the world saw year-on-year growth in May, according to Press Gazette’s monthly ranking of global online traffic.

It is a second slow month for visits to the world’s biggest news names. In April, Fox News was the only top ten newsbrand by number of visits to avoid a fall in traffic.

Among May’s top ten, the New York Times saw the biggest fall, with year-on-year visits down 30% to 575.3 million, continuing several months of steady decline.

Google News (390.9 million visits, down 22%) and Yahoo Finance (224.8 million visits, down 21%) also saw drops of above a fifth.

Microsoft news aggregator MSN was the only top ten site to see a drop of less than 5% (715.6 million visits, down 2% year-on-year).

The BBC was again the biggest newsbrand in the world with 1.1 billion visits. It was followed by msn.com, CNN (653.8 million visits), and the New York Times.

Mail Online overtook Google News to enter the top five this month (394.8 visits, down 15% year-on-year). The DMGT-owned site saw faster month-on-month growth than Google News (7% compared to 5% for Google News) leading it to climb one position in this month’s ranking. The positions of the remaining top ten sites by number of visits were unchanged from April.

Among the top 50 as a whole, the fastest-growing was Indian site timesnownews.com (51 million visits, up 80% year-on-year). Times Now, which is owned by Indian media giant Times Group, was one of four English language news sites from the sub-continent in the fastest-growing list. Also included were hindustantimes.com (149.6 million visits, up 28%), news18.com (168.8 million, up 17%) and timesofindia.com (178.3 million, up 16%).

Combined visits to the websites of Sun’s UK and US editions were up 17% year-on-year to 176.7 million, making it the fifth-fastest growing name in the top 50.

UK-based aggregator News Now jumped the most places in this month’s ranking, climbing five spots compared to April to rank 43 (54.5 million visits).

Buzzfeed, which shuttered its news operation earlier this year, meanwhile saw one of the biggest drops, falling three positions to rank 28 (94.4 million visits) as did US News (down four places to rank 50, 49.4 million visits).

Timesnownews.com was a new entrant in this month’s top 50, while US political news site, thehill.com re-entered the ranking in 48th position.

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 with a less news-based focus.

April 2023

Fox News was the only one of the world’s top ten newsbrands by number of visits to avoid a fall in traffic in April, according to Press Gazette’s monthly ranking of global online traffic to English-language newsbrands.

Visits to Fox News were up by 4% year-on-year in April to 314.5 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb. 

The remaining top ten sites fell by between 7% and 35% compared to April 2022.

The New York Times recorded a large year-on-year decline for the third month in row as visits fell 35% to 569.4 million, reflecting a similar fall in Press Gazette’s US top 50 ranking. The fall in visits was potentially linked to a less intense news cycle one year after the invasion of Ukraine, something that has likely affected many general news sites, and as well as lower interest in the Wordle puzzle. 

It was followed by Google News (372.8 million visits, down 24%) and Yahoo Finance (203.8 million visits, down 21%). Seven of the top ten newsbrands saw double-digit falls in growth. 

The BBC remained the biggest newsbrand in the world with 1.1 billion visits. It was followed by Microsoft news aggregator msn.com (655.2 million visits), CNN (626.1 million visits), the New York Times and Google News. 

Among the top 50 as a whole, fastest-growing was US site cbsnews.com (60.1 million visits, up 44% year-on-year). It was followed by AP News (69.2 million visits, up 33%) and Substack (51.1 million visits, up 28%) – which was slightly less growth than the newsletter platform saw last month.  

While the order of the top 11 sites in our ranking remained unchanged for another month, there were significant ranking shifts further down the list. Independent.co.uk (92.4 million visits) was the biggest climber, jumping six places to 26, while cnbc.com (139.3m visits) and Indian broadcaster NDTV.com (110.9 million visits) each fell four places to rank 17 and 24 respectively. 

Politico re-entered the top 50 this month (49.1 million visits, rank 47), while British regional title Manchester Evening News which was ranked 50 in March did not make the list this month.  

March 2023

The New York Times saw one of the biggest year-on-year declines in traffic among the biggest news websites in the world in March, according to Press Gazette’s monthly ranking of global online traffic to English-language newsbrands.

Visits to the New York Times site fell 42% in March to 599.7 million, the biggest decline among the top ten news brands and the third biggest in Press Gazette’s top 50 list.

It was the second month in a row that the New York Times, which bought popular word game Wordle in January 2022, recorded a large year-on-year decline in traffic after a 27% drop in February. This follows a long period where it regularly appeared as the fastest-growing website in the world, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

The New York Times’ decline in traffic may be at least in part reflective of declining interest in Wordle. The BBC recently reported on Google trends data indicating that interest in the viral word game is currently a third of the level at its peak.

None of the top ten largest sites grew in March, which may reflect a lower level of interest in news compared to March last year when audiences were keen to get regular updates on Russia’s newly-launched invasion of Ukraine.

The majority of the top ten sites saw declines of more than 20% year-on-year. The biggest falls after the New York Times were recorded by CNN (visits down 31% year-on-year), Google News (down 28%), Mail Online (24%) and the BBC (down 23%).

The BBC continued to top the list by number of worldwide visits at 1.1 billion. It was followed by Microsoft news aggregator msn.com (752.1 million), CNN (675 million) and the New York Times.

Similarweb’s data includes traffic to all pages within these domains and not just news, which will increase the number of visits to sites such as the BBC with a large entertainment offering.

The order of the 12 biggest sites in the ranking remained unchanged from February. The fastest-climbing site in the ranking was India.com, the country’s largest digital media publishing company by page views, which was up four places from 26 to 22 between February and March (130.5 million visits).

Reach site manchestereveningnews.co.uk (47.5 million visits) saw the biggest fall in places, down six positions since last month to rank 50.

The biggest year-on-year decline in the number of visits among the sites in the top 50 were seen by RT (down 64% to 94.1 million visits) and Sky News (down 47% to 58.7 million), ahead of NY Times which saw the third-largest decline in the top 50.

The fastest-growing site year-on-year among the top 50 was Substack, which has recently seen a strong run of growth, having grown 26% year-on-year in February’s ranking. Visits to the newsletter platform were up 32% year-on-year in March to 56.4 million.

It was followed by last month’s fastest-growing site cbsnews.com (up 25% to 61.9 million) and timesofindia.com (up 15% to 202.5 million).

February 2023

The New York Times website saw its traffic fall year-on-year for the first time in over 12 months, according to Press Gazette’s monthly ranking of global online traffic to English-language newsbrands.

Until February the publisher, which acquired popular word game Wordle in January last year, regularly ranked as the fastest-growing website in the world, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb. 

However in February there were 552.5 million visits to nytimes.com, a fall of 27% year-on-year. 

The only site to grow among the ten largest sites by number of visits was Microsoft news aggregator msn.com (747.6 million visits, up 3% year-on-year). 

The rest of the ten biggest sites all saw year-on-year falls in visits. Cnn.com and edition.cnn.com (614.4 million visits, down 26%), Google News (364.7 million visits, down 27%) and nytimes.com saw the biggest falls. 

The start of the war in Ukraine last February led to a surge in traffic for some newsbrands, which may be linked to this month’s year-on-year falls in comparison.

The BBC once again topped the list for number of worldwide visits at one billion, although Similarweb’s data includes traffic to all pages within the bbc.com and bbc.co.uk domains and not just news. It was followed by MSN, CNN, New York Times and Google News in a top five ranking unchanged from January. 

Mail Online (360.5 million visits, rank six, down 18% year-on-year) and The Guardian (322.1 million visits, rank seven, down 20%) were the highest-ranked British newsbrands after the BBC.

Last month’s fastest climbing site, news aggregator newsnow.co.uk, was the biggest faller down nine places from rank 32 to rank 41 in February (56.2 million visits).

Substack (50.4 million visits, rank 45), independent.co.uk (75.3 million visits, rank 33) and indiatoday.in (71.7 million visits, rank 34) were the biggest climbers, each moving up three places in the ranking. 

Among the whole top 50, the fastest-growing site for the third month in a row was CBS News (55.7 million visits, up 40% year-on-year). It was followed by people.com (151.2 million visits, up 32%), timesofindia.com (192.9 million visits, up 30%) and substack.com (up 26%). 

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 with a less news-based focus.

January 2023

The New York Times website was the fastest-growing top ten news website in the world by a large margin in January, according to Press Gazette’s monthly ranking of global online traffic to English-language newsbrands.

Total monthly visits to nytimes.com were up 60% year-on-year to 641.3 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

The second fastest-growing top ten site was Microsoft news aggregator msn.com (911.3 million visits, up 18%), while third-fastest growing was foxnews.com (351.4 million visits, up 6%).

The only other top ten site to see growth was CNN, with visits to the US-based cable channel’s US and international sites cnn.com and edition.cnn.com totalling 719.9 million (up 2% year-on-year).

Among the ten biggest sites, four saw double-digit year-on-year traffic falls. The biggest drop was experienced by Yahoo Finance (246.7 million visits, down 16% year-on-year). It was followed by another aggregator, Google News (453.3 million visits, down 15%), then theguardian.com (363.5 million visits, down 13%) and Mail Online (425.3 million visits, down 11%).

The biggest month-on-month gains among the top ten sites were CNN’s sites and Fox News, both recording 6% increase in visits from December.

The BBC once again topped the list for number of worldwide visits at 1.2 billion. Similarweb’s data includes traffic to all pages within the bbc.com and bbc.co.uk domains and not just news. It was followed by MSN, CNN, New York Times and Google News. As in December, the order of the top sites remains unchanged from the previous month.

Compared to sites in last month’s top 50, news aggregator newsnow.co.uk saw the biggest jump, climbing 14 places from rank 46 in December to rank 32 (85.3 million visits). Last month’s fastest-climbing site in the ranking The Sun (thesun.co.uk and the-sun.com combined) fell three places from rank 13 to rank 16 compared to last month (160.9 million visits).

Two British news websites telegraph.co.uk (65.5 million visits, rank 41) and news.sky.com (64.3 million, rank 43) saw the biggest falls in rank, both slipping down four places compared to December.

Among the whole top 50, the fastest-growing site for the second month in a row was CBS News (66.5 million visits, up 75% year-on-year). It was followed by New York Times, the AP news website (71.3 million visits, up 38% year-on-year) and people.com (172.8 million visits, up 27% year-on-year).

December 2022

Only three of the biggest ten news websites in the world saw an increase in visits in December, according to Press Gazette’s ranking of global online traffic to English-language newsbrands.

The New York Times was again the fastest-growing news website in the world. Visits to nytimes.com were up 69% year-on-year to reach 644 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

Although it was well ahead of second-fastest growing top ten site, Microsoft news aggregator msn.com (888 million visits, up 16%) in terms of growth, visits to nytimes.com were 8% down compared to November.

Fox News was the only other large site to see more visits in December 2022 compared to the same month in 2021 (332 million, up 1%).

Yahoo News (267.1 million visits, down 6%), theguardian.com (362.9 million visits, down 9%), Google News (468.1 million visits, down 14%) and Yahoo Finance (242.2 million, down 16%) saw the largest drops in the top ten.

December was also a slow month for the top sites for month-on-month growth with just three of the top ten news sites (MSN, Google News and Mail Online) seeing more traffic compared to November.

The BBC once again topped the list for number of worldwide visits at 1.2 billion, as the ranking of the top ten sites remained unchanged compared to November. Similarweb’s data includes traffic to all pages within the bbc.com and bbc.co.uk domains and not just news. The rest of the top five consisted of msn.com, cnn.com and edition.cnn.com, nytimes.com and Google News.

The best-ranked British newsbrand in the global listing after the BBC was Mail Online (431.2 million visits, down 3% year-on-year, rank six). The Guardian was the only other British newsbrand in the top ten (rank seven).

The Sun (thesun.co.uk and the-sun.com combined) saw the biggest jump in rank compared to last month among the top 50, climbing five places to thirteenth position in December. The UK tabloid’s British and US digital editions saw a combined 170.8 million visits.

Politics-focused news site politico.com saw the biggest fall in rank, dropping 11 places to 49th (50.8 million visits).

Among the sites not in last month’s ranking that entered the top 50 in December were newsnow.co.uk (54.7 million visits, rank 46) and dailystar.co.uk (54.7 million visits, rank 47).

Among the whole top 50, the fastest-growing site was CBS News (60 million visits, up 77% year-on-year), taking that title from the New York Times. Nytimes.com was this month’s second-fastest growing site, while the AP website was third (66.1 million visits, up 46% year-on-year).

November 2022

The New York Times was the fastest-growing news website in the world in November but dropped out of the top three, according to Press Gazette’s ranking of global online traffic to English-language newsbrands.

Visits to nytimes.com were up 93% year-on-year to reach 702.2m, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb. 

However the site lost its third-place ranking in the top 50 to CNN (779.1 million visits), which outpaced the New York Times for month-on-month growth in visits (21% compared to 11%). 

CNN was the second-fastest growing site year-on-year among the ten biggest sites by number of visits (up 22%). It was followed by Microsoft news aggregator, msn.com (870.8 million visits, up 15%), theguardian.com (387.6 million, up 13%) and washingtonpost.com (186.2 million, up 13%). 

Overall, eight of the top ten sites by number of visits grew year-on-year in November with only Google News (453.3 million visits, down 8% year-on-year) and Yahoo Finance (245.3 million, down 8%) seeing less traffic than in November 2021. 

The BBC once again topped the list for number of worldwide visits at 1.2 billion, unchanged from October. Similarweb’s data includes traffic to all pages within the bbc.com and bbc.co.uk domains and not just news. The rest of the top five consisted of msn.com, cnn.com and edition.cnn.com, nytimes.com and Google News. 

There were three British newsbrands in the top ten with dailymail.co.uk (390.9 million visits, rank six) best-positioned after the BBC. Mail Online narrowly beat The Guardian which was ranked seven.

A number of sites not in last month’s top 50 entered the ranking in November, among them politico.com (rank 38, 70.5 million visits) and thehill.com (rank 47, 56.7 million visits). 

Of the sites that ranked in both October and November, Nbcnews.com (rank 28 in November, 98.1 million visits) gained the most places, jumping nine spots. 

Among the whole top 50, the fastest-growing site after nytimes.com was CBS News (59.8 million visits, up 68% year-on-year). In third place for growth was politico.com (up 57% year-on-year), while fourth was AP News (78.7 million visits, up 42%). 

Starting from this month, Press Gazette is combining the visit data for the Sun’s US and UK editions in our worldwide top 50 ranking. The Sun’s combined sites racked up 155.1 million visits to rank 29th in the world. 

October 2022

The New York Times was the third-largest news website in the world in October, according to Press Gazette’s ranking of global online traffic to English language newsbrands.

Visits to nytimes.com were up 82% year-on-year to reach 634.3m, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb. The growth in visits pushed the US-based publisher up the ranking from fourth to third place compared to September. The New York Times has seen consistent growth in 2022, following its acquisition of Wordle earlier this year. 

Among the ten biggest sites by number of visits, Nytimes.com was the fastest-growing in October. It was followed by theguardian.com (404.4m visits, up 15% year-on-year), washingtonpost.com (187 million visits, up 13%).  The BBC, CNN and Daily Mail saw lesser year-on-year growth at 6% each.

The BBC remains the biggest site in the world by number of visits (1.2bn), although Similarweb’s data includes traffic to all pages within the bbc.com and bbc.co.uk domains and not just news. It was followed by msn.com (795.8m visits) in a top two that remains unchanged from previous months. Just below them in the list, the New York Times climbed to third place, to knock CNN (645.2m visits) down to fourth spot. 

After the BBC, best-ranked British newsbrand, The Guardian climbed one spot compared to September, ranking sixth this month. It displaced another British newsbrand the Mail Online (387 million visits) which fell to seventh place. 

Among the top 50 as a whole, the fastest-growing site for the second month in a row was liveuamap.com (61.7m million visits, up 2779%) which presents updates on the Ukraine war, now into its tenth month. 

Three British newsbrands also ranked among the fastest-growing sites in the top 50. Third-fastest growing was the Sun’s US digital edition, the-sun.com (60.8m million visits, up 58% year-on-year), which we have consistently reported as having seen strong growth according to Similarweb data. Last month, Will Payne the Sun’s director of digital told Press Gazette that the site’s growth has meant that its primary source of revenue, programmatic advertising has proved “very lucrative” while believing that the site has more room to grow from their current market penetration of the site at 15% of the US adult population.

Other British newsbrands that grew strongly were news.sky.com which was fifth fastest-growing (82.2 million visits, rank 32, up 43% year-on-year) and telegraph.co.uk (73.9m visits, rank 38, up 40% year-on-year). All three sites also enjoyed strong year-on-year growth according to last month’s top 50 ranking.

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 with a less news-based focus.

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.

September 2022

The New York Times was the fastest-growing top ten site in the world in September, according to Press Gazette’s ranking of global online traffic to English language newsbrands.

Visits to nytimes.com were up 72% year-on-year to 618.6 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

Mail Online, the only other top ten site to see double-digit growth, saw visits grow by 11% to 411.6 million.

The BBC remains the biggest site in the world by number of visits, although Similarweb’s data includes traffic to all pages within the bbc.com and bbc.co.uk domains and not just news. The BBC was followed by msn.com (755.6 million visits), CNN, New York Times and Google News (466 million visits).

Last month’s fastest-growing site the-sun.com – the US digital version of the UK tabloid – was second fastest-growing (54.4 million visits, up 79%).

British newsbrands Telegraph.co.uk (71.4 million visits, up 42%) and news.sky.com (76.3 million visits, up 34%) were among the top ten fastest-growing sites in the top 50 as a whole.

August 2022

The New York Times and Mail Online were the only top ten news sites to grow their worldwide audiences year-on-year for the second month in a row, according to Press Gazette’s ranking of global online traffic to English language newsbrands.

Visits to nytimes.com were up 65% year-on-year to 637.8 million while visits to dailymail.co.uk were up 6% to 416.1 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

They were the only other top ten sites by number of visits that saw any year-on-year traffic growth. Fox News (318.5 million visits, down 10%) and the BBC’s two domains, bbc.com and bbc.co.uk (1.1 billion visits, down 12%) meanwhile recorded double-digit falls in growth. 

Among the top 50 as a whole, fastest-growing was the US edition of The Sun (64 million visits, up 118%), echoing the site’s strong growth in the US market as well. News Corp launched the US digital version of the popular UK tabloid in 2020 and the site has seen steady growth since then, ranking twentieth in the US and 26 in the world. 

It was followed by the nytimes.com, cbsnews.com (52 million visits, up 45%) and US celebrity news publisher people.com (143.5 million visits, up 36%). 

The BBC, as in previous months, was the largest site by number of visits in the top 50. It was followed by msn.com (746m visits, down 5%), cnn.com and edition.cnn.com (661.2m visits, down 4%), nytimes.com and Google News (493.9 million visits, down 9%). 

There were three British newsbrands among the top ten. Best-ranked after the BBC was Mail Online (sixth place, 416.1 million visits) followed by The Guardian (ranked seventh, 354.3 million visits). 

Just 16 sites among the list of 50 saw more visits this August compared to last year, but over half of the sites in our ranking grew month-on-month. The-sun.com and people.com were again the fastest growing sites month-on-month with 31% more visits in August than July.

July 2022

The New York Times and Mail Online were the only top ten news sites to grow their worldwide audiences year-on-year in July.

The New York Times was also the fastest grower among the overall top 50, according to Press Gazette’s ranking of global online traffic to English language newsbrands.

Visits to nytimes.com were up 73% year-on-year to 636.3 million while visits todailymail.co.uk were up 3% to 415.1 million, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

Every other top ten site by number of visits in contrast saw year-on-year traffic falls, with five sites (Google News, foxnews.com, theguardian.com, Yahoo Finance and the BBC) all seeing double-digit declines in visits. The BBC’s sites bbc.com and bbc.co.uk recorded the second largest fall among the top ten (1.1 billion visits, down 15%).

The BBC remained the largest site by number of visits in the top 50. It was followed by msn.com (722.6m visits, down 8%), cnn.com and edition.cnn.com (636.6m visits, down 3%), nytimes.com (636.3 million, up 73%) and Google News (490.2 million visits, down 10%). Similarweb’s data captures visits to all content on the BBC’s primary sites – not just news.

The best-ranked British newsbrand after the BBC was Mail Online, which came in sixth place. There were 11 British newsbrands in the list of 50 – among them the websites of Sky News, the Telegraph, the Mirror and the Guardian.

Among the whole top 50, 14 sites grew year-on-year in July with the New York Times also seeing the biggest year-on-year growth in visits among the top 50 as a whole. It was followed by two other US newsbrands: nypost.com (186.1 million visits, up 44%) and Newsweek (68.1 million visits, up 43%).

While traffic was largely lower than in July last year, most sites saw more visits in July than in June.

Twenty-eight sites in the top 50 saw month-on-month growth in visits, with British-based news aggregator News Now topping the table (13% growth month-on-month, ,87.5 million visits). The Manchester Evening News and Sky News websites also saw strong growth, both up 12% month-on-month.

Update: this article was amended on 23 August to reflect revised figures received from Similarweb. 

June 2022

Only two of the top ten news websites in the world saw year-on-year audience growth in June, according to Press Gazette’s latest ranking of the 50 biggest English-language sites.

The New York Times and Mail Online bucked the trend for a second month. The New York Times was the fastest growing top ten site in our ranking with visits to nytimes.com up 34% year-on-year to 449.8 million according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb. The company acquired Wordle in February 2022 which has helped grow the site’s traffic. Mail Online meanwhile saw visits up 3% to 336.3 million.

Meanwhile, three top ten sites saw double-digit year-on-year declines in traffic. Visits to theguardian.com were down 15% to 259.6 million, visits to Yahoo Finance were down 15% to 240 million, while visits to bbc.co.uk and bbc.com were down 22% to 100.8 million.

Despite this fall in traffic, the BBC sites topped the list for number of visits in June. They were followed by Microsoft’s news aggregator and portal msn.com (843.4 million visits, down 4% year-on-year), cnn.com and edition.cnn.com (589.3 million visits, down 2%), Google News (479.7 million visits, down 8%) and nytimes.com. Similarweb’s data for the BBC includes visits to the BBC’s main site as well as its news offering, while its data for MSN is for the entire portal.

Sports news site Sportz Bonanza was the fastest growing site overall among the whole top 50 (46.1 million visits, up 3764%). It was among only eight sites in the top 50 that saw more traffic in June 2022 compared to June 2021.

Just five sites, meanwhile, saw month-on-month growth compared to May. Among them were two British brands –  news aggregator newsnow.co.uk (rank 37, 67.2 million visits, up 13% month-on-month) and express.co.uk (rank 17, 111.7 million visits, up 5% month-on-month).

May 2022

The New York Times was the fastest growing top news sites in the world in May 2022, according to Press Gazette’s latest ranking of the 50 biggest English-language news websites in the world. 

The New York Times website, which has seen a recent run of strong growth was the fastest growing top ten site with visits to nytimes.com up 52% year-on-year to 524.6 million according to data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb.  NYT year on year traffic growth has been helped by the acquisition of popular online game Wordle in February 2022.

It was followed by dailymail.co.uk  to which visits were up 14% to 373.3 million and CNN (641.8 million visits, up 4%).

The fastest growing site overall among the whole top 50 list was again, Live Universal Awareness Map (liveuamap.com), which presents updates on conflicts in the form of a map (53.2m visits, up 1987%). Its huge surge is due to increased interest in its Ukraine coverage compared to the low base from which it started.

Website of British tabloid, The Mirror was among the minority of news websites that saw year-on-year traffic growth in May. Visits to mirror.co.uk increased 7% to 94.7 million.

It was among only 16 sites that saw more traffic this May compared to the same month last year.

In contrast to last month when almost every website in the top 50 saw less traffic month-on-month,  many sites performed better in May than April. All but nine sites in the top 50 had more visitors this month. Politico.com (55.3 million visits, up 28% month-on-month) and Australian broadcaster’s site  abc.net.au (113.9 million visits, up 25%) saw the biggest month-on-month gains. 

Among the top ten, Yahoo Finance (262 million visits, up 9% month-on-month) and Fox News (272.2 million visits, up 8% month-on-month) saw the biggest monthly growth. 

The BBC maintained its spot at the top of the ranking as the biggest news website in the world (1.1bn visits). In second place was msn.com (878.1 million visits) and CNN’s sites.  The New York Times was fourth while Google News came in fifth (500.1 million visits). Similarweb’s data for the BBC includes visits to the BBC’s main site as well as its news offering, while its data for MSN is for the entire portal.

Mail Online (sixth place) was the best-ranked British newsbrand after the BBC, while theguardian.com (293.5 million visits, seventh place) was the only other British name in the top ten. 

April 2022

The majority of the most popular news websites in the world saw a year-on-year and month-on-month fall in their traffic in April, as news interest in the Ukraine war is likely to be waning.

Six of the ten biggest English language news sites in the world by number of visits saw fewer visits in April, compared to the same month last year, according to data from digital intelligence platform Similarweb. Of this group, Yahoo Finance saw the biggest year-on-year fall in traffic (2404.m visits, down 14%). It was followed by the BBC.co.uk and BBC.com sites (1.1bn visits, down 11%) and Fox News (252.5m visits, down 6%).

Bucking the trend among this list of ten leading sites was the New York Times which had 546.5m visits in March (up 51%) and Mail Online (354.5m visits, up 11%). The New York Times’ acquisition of Wordle in January will likely have been among the factors that have helped increase its popularity. 

Among the whole top 50 list, Live Universal Awareness Map (liveuamap.com), which presents updates on conflicts in the form of a map, saw the biggest year-on-year growth in traffic (57.7m visits, up 2,146%). This huge surge is due to the fact that the site had relatively low levels of traffic prior to February this year when the Russian invasion of Ukraine began. 

Its growth was followed by New York Times, Al Jazeera (45 visits, up 46%) and the web version of News Corp-owned tabloid New York Post (133.1m visits, up 22%). 

Overall April’s data demonstrates a lessened interest in news.

Last month, Press Gazette reported that a majority of sites saw a year-on-year increase in traffic. In April, in contrast, just 16 sites saw more visits when compared to April 2021. Month-on-month analysis reveals an even starker picture: every site in the top 50 list saw fewer visits in April compared to March, likely due to declining interest in coverage of the war in Ukraine, now approaching its fourth month. 

Sites with a particularly large focus on events in Ukraine were among those with the sharpest month-on-month falls in traffic. Despite its strong year-on-year figures, visits to liveuamap.com were down 23% month-on-month. The website of Russian state news outlet RT also saw a large month-on-month fall in traffic (142.7m visits, down 31%). 

Al Jazeera saw the biggest month-on-month traffic fall in April (down 41% compared to March). 

The BBC again was the biggest news website in the world (1.1bn visits, down 11% year-on-year). It was followed by Microsoft news aggregator MSN (843.7m visits, no change year-on-year) and cnn.com and edition.cnn.com (609.1m visits, down 4% year-on-year). The New York Times and Google News website (491.7m visits) complete the top five. Similarweb’s data for the BBC includes visits to the BBC’s main site as well as its news offering, while its data for MSN is for the entire portal.

The best-ranked British newsbrands after the BBC were dailymail.co.uk (in sixth place, 354.5m visits), theguardian.com (seventh place, 283.7m visits) and express.co.uk (ranked 19th, 100.6m visits).

March 2022

All but one of the ten biggest English-language news sites in the world saw year-on-year increases in traffic in March.

The New York Times was the fastest growing website among the top ten news sites worldwide for number of visits in March. Visits to the site of the US daily were up 76% year-on-year to 662.1m, according to data provided to Press Gazette by digital intelligence platform Similarweb. The New York Times’ surge in popularity is likely to have been in part driven by its acquisition in January of the highly popular word game Wordle.

It was followed by dailymail.co.uk (393.7m visits, up 17%) and CNN’s sites (cnn.com and edition.cnn.com) (805.7m visits, up 17%).

Yahoo Finance was the only top ten site that saw a year-on-year fall in traffic (visits were down 17% to 273.2m).

Overall, just over half (27) of the top 50 sites saw more visits this March compared to the same month last year. The growth in traffic is likely in many cases to have been driven by an increased interest in news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The biggest year-on-year growth overall, however, was to Live Universal Awareness Map (liveuamap.com) which had 74.8m visits, an increase of 3390% year-on-year. The site was set up by a team of journalists and coders in 2014 to report on the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

The site, which presents the latest updates on issues including conflicts, protests, terrorism and natural disasters from around the world in the form of a map, is likely to have seen increased interest due to the current war in Ukraine.

Live Universal Awareness Map was followed by aljazeera.com (75.8m visits, up 168%), reuters.com (121.4m visits – up 76%), nytimes.com and RT.com (207.8m visits, up 58%).

Despite restrictions on RT in Europe, including in the UK where Ofcom last month revoked its broadcast licence due to concerns over its lack of impartiality, the Russian state broadcaster will have benefited from increased interest in its Ukraine war coverage from other countries. RT.com narrowly missed the top ten, coming in eleventh place for number of visits.

The BBC again was the biggest news website in the world (1.3bn visits, up 2%). It was followed by Microsoft news aggregator MSN (912.1m visits – up 4%), CNN, nytimes.com and Google News (559.4m visits – up 4%). Similarweb’s data for the BBC includes visits to the BBC’s main site as well as its news offering, while its data for MSN is for the entire portal.

After the BBC, the best-ranked UK sites globally were dailymail.co.uk (in sixth place) and theguardian.com (344m visits – up 9%, ranked seventh).

Thesun.co.uk fared less well. Visits to the site of the UK tabloid were down 10% (90.3m visits) in contrast to the strong performance of its sister site in the US, the-sun.com which has performed very well in recent months.

January 2022

Several of the world’s leading news sites including the BBC, New York Times and Guardian saw small month-on-month traffic increases in January.

The BBC, the biggest news website in the world by number of visits, had 1.2bn visits in January (2% more than December), according to data provided to Press Gazette by digital intelligence platform Similarweb.

Second placed MSN, Microsoft’s news aggregator, received 884.2m visits (no change compared to December 2021), while third-place CNN received 624.7m visits (up 2%). 

Similarweb’s data for the BBC includes visits to the BBC’s main site as well as its news offering, while its data for MSN is for the entire portal.

Year-on-year comparisons however show a very different picture as January 2021 contained major news events such as Covid-19 surges and the Capitol insurrection and Joe Biden’s inauguration in the US. As in previous months where Press Gazette has reported traffic falls for most leading sites compared to one year ago, all of the ten biggest sites by number of visits saw significant year-on-year falls in traffic. 

Of these ten household names, CNN saw the biggest year-on-year fall in number of visits (down 44%). It was followed by New York Times (353.8m visits –  down 34%) and Fox News (286.6m visits – down 26%). The BBC and Yahoo Finance each saw an 18% year-on-year fall. The Mail Online saw a more modest drop (369.2m visits – down 4%). 

Just 14 sites in our list of 50 saw year-on-year growth. Featuring prominently among them were once again English-language news sites from India. News18.com, co-owned by Warner Media, was the fastest growing site in January (132m visits – up 47%). It was followed by December’s fastest-growing site Indiatoday.in (75.5m visits  – up 41%) and hindustantimes.com (83.2m visits – up 18% year-on-year). 

British news aggregator newsnow.co.uk was among the top ten fastest growing sites in January (69.7m worldwide visits – 5% growth). 

When it comes to the top ten biggest sites by number of visits, UK sites took the top spot (BBC), fifth place (Mail Online) and seventh place (The Guardian). 

The news offerings from tech platforms also performed well with MSN taking second spot, Google News fourth spot and Yahoo Finance and Yahoo News ninth and tenth place respectively. 

December 2021

Many leading news sites again saw large year-on-year global traffic falls in December, although visits fell less sharply than in the month before.

Last month Press Gazette reported that most of the world’s top 10 biggest English news sites saw double-digit falls in traffic in November due to the effect of 2020’s “Trump bump” which temporarily benefitted many sites covering US politics.

The enduring effect of a particularly intense news cycle is also likely to be reflected in December’s traffic data from digital intelligence platform, Similarweb. Of the top ten sites by number of visits, CNN saw the biggest year-on-year fall (612.7m visits- down 27%) followed by nytimes.com (339.2m visits- down 22%).

UK news providers the BBC (1.1b visits – down 13%) and the Guardian (302.5m visits – down 13%) were among other big name brands that saw double-digit traffic falls in December.

December, however, was a better month for most. The majority of the world’s top 50 English-language news sites saw more traffic in December compared to November. Just 17 sites saw visits either fall or remain unchanged month-on-month.

When it comes to number of visits the BBC, which dominates in the UK, also continues to hold the number one spot globally. Its closest competitors, Microsoft’s popular desktop news aggregator MSN and the website of cable stalwart CNN, had 882.5m and 612.7m visits respectively, leaving the BBC the clear leader by a margin of 30% over second-place MSN.

Similarweb’s data for the BBC includes visits to the BBC’s main site as well as its news offering while its data for MSN is for the entire portal.

Mail Online (357.2m visits – down 5% year-on-year) and theguardian.com are, as in November, the other two British offerings in the top 10.

For year-on-year growth among the top 50 sites, English-language news sites from India performed well. The five top sites for year-on-growth were all Indian and all saw double-digit growth in visits. Indiatoday.in was the fastest growing site in the top 50 (70.6m visits  – up 48% on December 2020) while news18.com, co-owned by Warner Media, was second-fastest growing (118.7m visits – up 39%).

November 2021

Most leading news sites saw large year-on-year global traffic falls in November due to the effect of 2020’s “Trump bump” which temporarily benefitted many sites covering US politics.

Of the top ten sites by number of global visits, CNN saw the biggest year-on-year fall in traffic (590.4 million visits- down 57%), according to data from web analytics firm, Similarweb.

It was followed by another US site nytimes.com (327 million visits -down 54%). Both sites undoubtedly benefitted from the surge in interest last November in US news during presidential election month.

Of the leading ten sites only Yahoo! Finance and MSN did not see a fall in visits compared to last year. Visits to Yahoo! Finance were up 13% (268.3 million visits) while MSN’s traffic was almost static (890.4 million visits – up 1%).

When it comes to number of visits, the BBC continues to hold the number one spot. There were 1.1 billion visits in November to bbc.com and bbc.co.uk (a fall of 25% year-on-year).

Microsoft’s news aggregation portal MSN meanwhile once again came in second place, while third most visited globally was CNN. A surge of interest in US news in late 2020 and early 2021 meant that the cable news channel’s sites were ahead of MSN for some time, but since then it has remained in third place for much of 2021.

Similarweb’s data for the BBC includes visits to the BBC’s main site as well as its news offering while its data for MSN is for the entire portal.

Two British sites join the BBC in the top ten – Mail Online (307.5 million visits – down 16% year-on-year) and theguardian.com (277.9 million visits – down 42% year-on-year).

For year-on-year growth among the top 50 global news sites as a whole, several English-language news sites from India did well in November, echoing their October success.

Although entertainment new site gazillions.com re-took its crown as the fastest growing news site (51.8 million visits – up 631%), five of the fastest ten growing news sites were Indian. Livemint.com, website of Indian financial daily Mint, was the second-fastest growing new site in November (53.2 million visits – up 73%), while website of Indian news magazine India Today was third fastest growing (65.4 million visits – up 71%). Other fast-growing Indian sites  included news18.com (128 million visits – up 31%), hindustantimes.com (84 million visits – up 21%) and timesofindia.com  (133.7 million visits – up 19%).

Yahoo! Finance was the only other news site to see double-digit year-on-year visits growth in November.

As has been the case in recent months, only a minority of sites (11 of the top 50) saw more traffic in November 2021 than during the same month last year.

October 2021

Microsoft’s news and app platform MSN continued to close the gap on the BBC in October, according to Press Gazette’s ranking of the biggest English language news websites in the world.

There were 1 billion visits in October to the Microsoft site which aggregates news, as it continued to eat into the BBC’s position as the leading news site in the world. Bbc.co.uk and bbc.com meanwhile had 1.1 billion visits from around the world in October, according to data from web analytics firm, Similarweb. Similarweb’s data for the BBC includes visits to the BBC’s main site as well as its news offering while its data for MSN is for the entire portal.

Nevertheless, both sites were well ahead of third-placed CNN which had 569.5 million visits in October. CNN’s sites, CNN.com and edition.cnn.com, had for much of 2019 and 2020 been vying with MSN for second place but were overtaken for number of visits by the Microsoft platform in February this year.

Rounding out the top five were Google News (498.7 million visits) and the website of The New York Times (317.3 million visits). The BBC was the only British  site in the top five – although Mail Online placed sixth (302.9 million visits).

Of the top ten news sites by volume of visits in October, only MSN saw a year-on-year increase in the number of visits (up 16% compared to October 2020). Of this group, CNN saw the biggest fall in audience compared to October 2020 (visits were down 36% on last October’s total of 891.6 million).

For year-on-growth among the top 50 global news sites as a whole, several English-language news sites from India did well in October. Website of Indian news magazine India Today was the fastest growing top 50 site in October (69.7 million visits – up 62% year-on-year). It was followed by livemint.com, the website of the Indian financial daily, Mint (45.3 million visits – up 38%) and Warner Media’s India news site news18.com (129.3 million visits – up 34%). Seven sites record double-digit year-on-year growth in October.

USnews.com (54.7 million visits – up 9%) and Reuters.com (73.4 million visits – up 9%) also featured among the fastest-growing sites in October.

Following a particularly intense news cycle in 2020 which saw the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and the US elections, all but 13 sites among the top 50 saw a fall in year-on-year traffic.

September 2021

Australian news site 9News.com.au was the fastest growing site in September.

The site, the digital arm of broadcaster Nine News, had 45.6 million visits in September – an increase of 30% compared to the same month last year according to data from web analytics firm, Similarweb. 

It was followed by far-right fake news site, thegatewaypundit.com, which was last month’s fastest growing site. The site which has published false information about Covid-19 and the 2020 US presidential election grew 28% year-on-year to reach 39.4 million visits. 

Four other Antipodean sites also made it into the top ten for year-on-year growth. Visits to nzherald.co.nz were up 24% year-on-year (46.9 million visits).  Australian site abc.net.au also saw visits up 24% (121 million) while visits to stuff.co.nz were up 21% (48 million) and news.com.au saw a 15% increase (107.8 million).

When it came to monthly gains,  only a handful of sites saw an improvement in traffic compared to August. Ctvnews.ca, the news site of Canada’s CTV Television Network saw the biggest month-on-month gain (80.7 million visits – up 15%). It was followed by technology news specialist theverge.com (44.8 million visits – up 8%) and msn.com (960.5 million visits – up 5%).  

Press Gazette has this month revised its ranking to now include MSN and Yahoo! News among the sites it analyses.

Once again BBC.co.uk and BBC.com combined to come out on top in terms of total visits with 1.1 billion website visits in September. Newly-ranked msn.com came in second place, while CNN’s sites (cnn.com and edition.cnn.com) counted 583.8 million visits together. Similarweb’s data for the BBC  does, however, include visits to BBC’s main site as well as its news offering while its data for MSN is for the entire portal. 

The next largest websites belonged to the New York Times (329.5 million visits, down 13% year-on-year), Mail Online (313.6 million visits, down 15% year-on-year), Fox News (292.7 million, down 22% year-on-year), and The Guardian (284.7 million, down 10%).

Continuing the trend seen in recent months, all but 18 of the top fifty sites had less year-on-year traffic this September. MSN.com and Yahoo! Finance were the only top ten-ranked sites for number of visits that saw year-on-year increases in traffic

August 2021

Far-right fake news site Gatweaypundit.com was the fastest growing site in August according to Press Gazette’s ranking of the biggest English language news websites in the world.

The site, which has published false information about Covid-19, vaccines and the 2020 US presidential election, had 39.7 million visits in August – an increase of 31% compared to the same month last year according to data from web analytics firm, Similarweb. Monetising that popularity is however, now likely to be more difficult: according to Forbes, in September Google removed the site from its AdSense programme due to violations of its company policy. 

The website of New York-based news agency Associated Press was the second fastest growing site in August, with year-on-year visits up 26% from 41.4 million in August 2020 to 52.2 million in August 2021.

The remaining sites in the top five meanwhile were all Australian. The third fastest growing site was that of Australian news broadcaster, abc.com.au, which saw visits increase 26% from 109 million to 137.7 million. It was followed by 9news.com.au, which saw visits up 22% from 41.6 million to 50.8 million, and smh.com.au to which visits were 22% higher at 47.4 million.

When it came to monthly gains, Al Jazeera saw the biggest increase compared to July. Visits to the broadcaster’s site were 29% higher in August than July  (40.5 million visits). The site of longstanding Antipodean daily The New Zealand Herald also grew well over the month (48.1 million visits – up 25%) while another site from New Zealand, stuff.co.nz, was the third-fastest growing site month-on-month (51.2 million visits – up 22%). 

Once again BBC.co.uk and BBC.com combined to come out on top in terms of total visits with 1.2 billion website visits in August. Next placed CNN racked up just over half the number of visits as the BBC sites (656.1 million), although the gap between the two leading sites narrowed slightly in August compared to July: BBC’s visits decreased compared to July , while CNN’s increased. Similarweb’s data for the BBC does, however, include visits to both BBC’s main site as well as its news offering. 

The next largest websites belonged to the New York Times (356 million visits, down 9% year-on-year), Mail Online (335 million visits, down 15% year-on-year), Fox News (313.9 million, down 21% year-on-year), and The Guardian (306.4 million, down 4%).

All but 16 of the top fifty sites had less year-on-year traffic in August. Of the top ten sites only BBC.co.uk and BBC.com, express.co.uk and finance.yahoo.com saw small falls in the number of visits. 

July 2021

For the second month in a row Australian news sites dominated the list for the top five fastest growing sites in June.

The website of celebrity and royalist news magazine Hello! was the fastest growing site, with year-on-year visits up 34% from 46.3 million in July 2020 to 62.1 million in July 2021 according to data from web analytics firm Similarweb.

Three of the top five, however, were Australian national news sites. The second-fastest growing site year-on-year was that of leading commercial Australian news broadcaster, 9news.com.au which saw visits increase 33% from 42.6 million to 56.7 million. It was followed by abc.net.au, which saw visits up 31% from 103.4 million to 135 million, while news.com.au was the fifth-fastest growing site with visits up 16% to 113.1 million.

American news site The Daily Beast, described by its editor-in-chief Noah Shachtman as a “high-end tabloid”, saw the biggest month-on-month gains in July with visits up 26% to 36.2 million visits compared to June 2021.

The three Australian news sites that grew well year-on-year were also among the fastest growers on a monthly basis, as were hellomagazine.com (up 23%) and apnews.com (46.2 million visits – up 21%).

Once again BBC.co.uk and BBC.com combined to come out on top in terms of total visits with 1.3 billion website visits in July. Next placed CNN racked up just under half the number of visits as the BBC sites (630.1 million), although the BBC’s lead over the CNN in July has reduced slightly compared to June when the BBC had over 700 million more visits than CNN. Similarweb’s data for the BBC does however, include visits to both BBC’s main site as well as its news offering.

The next largest websites belonged to the Mail Online (348.8 million visits, down 7% year-on-year), New York Times (342.7 million visits, down 18% year-on-year), The Guardian (317 million, no change year-on-year), and Fox News (298.4 million, down 25% ).

Most of the top ten sites saw slightly more traffic in July than June. Of the top ten sites only BBC.co.uk and BBC.com, express.co.uk and finance.yahoo.com saw small falls in the number of visits.

Overall, there was little change in the combined amount of visits to the current top 50 most popular news websites in July (6.8 billion visits) compared to June (6.6 billion visits). Combined year-on-year traffic remains 10% lower than in the same month last year, when there were a combined 7.6 billion visits to these leading 50 sites.

June 2021

Australian news sites 9News and ABC were among the fastest growing sites in June.

US-based technology news site theverge.com was the fastest growing site in June 2021, with month-on-month visits up 22% from 43.4m to 52.8m according to data from web analytics company Similarweb.

It was followed by the website of leading commercial Australian news broadcaster 9news.com.au, which saw visits increase 18% from 38.6m to 45.8m, and abc.net.au, which saw visits up 13% from 100.7m to 114.2m.

Among the sites that saw significant falls in traffic that month were sites from India. The timesofindia.com saw visits fall 18% from 211.4m to 147.1m between May and June, while visits to indiatoday.in were down 9%, falling from 81.7m to 63.5m.

Right-leaning video news platform BitChute saw the biggest year-on-year gains in April: up 78% to 40.1m visits.

Also among the top ten fastest growers year-on-year were hellomagazine.com (50.5m visits, up 25%), finance.yahoo.com (288.5m, up 21%) and usnews.com (56m, up 15%). Three Australian sites (9news.com.au, abc.net.au and news.com.au) also made the top ten.

BBC.co.uk and BBC.com combined came out on top with 1.3bn website visits in June. This was 10% more than in June last year, when both sites combined received 1.2bn visits.

Next place CNN had 599.7m sessions on its websites (CNN.com and edition.CNN.com). Visits to CNN.com and edition.CNN.com sites were 30% lower than the 857.6m visits that the two sites received in June 2020.

The next largest websites belonged to the New York Times (336.9m visits, down 20% year-on-year), Mail Online (325.6m, down 6%), The Guardian (304.6m, down 12%) and Yahoo! Finance (288.5m, up 21%).

Overall, the current top 50 most popular news websites saw a combined 4% fewer visits in June (7.2bn) versus May (7.5bn), and traffic remained 10% lower than in June last year, when there were a combined 8bn visits to these leading 50 sites.

April 2021

Hello magazine and The Times were among the fastest growing sites in April.

Hellomagazine.com was the fastest growing site in March 2021, with month-on-month visits up 117% from 27.9m to 60.6m according to Similarweb. It was followed by right-wing video news platform BitChute, which saw visits increase 83% from 20.3m to 37m and thetimes.co.uk, which saw visits up 35% from 27.6m to 37.3m.

Among the sites that saw the falls in traffic year-on-year were politics-focused news site The Hill, right-wing news aggregator Drudge Report and business news site Forbes.

The websites of two Canadian brands, CTV Television Network and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, saw the biggest month-on-month gains in April: up 17% to 87.6m and 8% to 84.3m, respectively.

Also among the top ten fastest growers month-on-month were dailystar.co.uk (35.3m visits, up 5%), nypost.com (109m, up 1%) and the website of Russian-state owned RT (131.8m, up 0.5%).

BBC.co.uk and BBC.com combined came out on top with 1.2bn website visits in April. This was 8% more than in April last year when both sites combined received 1.1bn visits.

As a result the BBC has widened its lead slightly over next place CNN with 636m sessions on its websites (CNN.com and edition.CNN.com). Visits to CNN.com and edition.CNN.com sites were 35% lower than the 979m visits that the two sites received in April 2020.

The next largest websites belonged to the New York Times (363m visits, down 18% year-on-year), Fox News (269m, down 30%), Mail Online (320m, down 13%) and The Guardian (301m, down 23%).

Overall, the current top 50 most popular news websites saw a combined 5% fewer visits in April (6.6bn) versus March (6.9bn), and traffic remained 15% lower than in April last when there was a combined 7.7bn visits to these leading 50 sites.

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

Picture: Reuters/Valentyn Ogirenko 

Related Article: Top 50 news websites in the US: AP and Axios among fastest-growing in September

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