All but eight of the 50 most-visited news sites in the US saw traffic growth in March compared to February, with a third seeing at least 10% growth in the longer month. Men’s Journal was the fastest growing top-50 news website in the US in May, quadrupling its traffic compared to the same month a year earlier. Of the 50 biggest news websites by visits in June, 34 saw month-on-month growth (up from 15 in May) and 29 saw a year-on-year increase (up from 14 last month). Al.com saw the biggest month-on-month growth at 14%, and was one of just six websites to see an increase in visits compared to July. The only other site in the top ten to see growth both compared to September 2024 and August 2025 was The New York Times, up 9% month on month and 3% year on year to 461.6 million visits in first place.
AP News (98.8 million, up 21%) and Variety (43.8 million, up 19%) also saw growth of over or close to a fifth. Fastest-growing was long-standing sports publisher Athlon Sports, which entered our top 50 for the first time in 33rd place (35.9 million visits, up 962% year-on-year). People meanwhile retook fifth place following its strong growth, with Yahoo Finance (154.4 million) falling into seventh.
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- Mail Online (136.1 million) gains a place, rising to ninth, and Newsweek (133.3 million) leaps from 16th to tenth place.
- In September, the news division saw a spike as it increased 54% month on month (the biggest leap compared to August in the whole top 50 ranking) and 5% year on year to 96.6 million.
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Long-running magazine The Atlantic also saw a strong March with 30 million visits, an increase of 26% month-on-month. Along with USA Today (143.4 million visits, up 13% year-on-year) and New York Times (498.6 million, up 10%), it was one of three of the top ten websites by number of visits in March to see double-digit growth. Fox News saw the biggest slump at 14% with visits down to 249.9 million despite a busy news cycle in the US with national elections later this year. Instead fastest-growing was M Live (up 27% month-on-month), followed by CBS News (84 million, up 26%), Axios (up 21%), and technology specialist The Verge (up 17%). Newsweek continued a strong run of growth to retake its spot as the fastest-growing news website in the US in April, according to Press Gazette’s latest ranking. CNN (419.2 million visits, up 3%) and the New York Times (503.4 million, up 3%) also saw growth, albeit more modest, compared to April.
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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.
Further down the rankings The Daily Beast was the highest debuting publication, entering the top 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.
The New York Times remains the most-visited news site in the US, followed by CNN (351.5 million) and Fox News (272.8 million). The AP’s consumer-facing website has seen “a lot of audience growth” since it relaunched in June 2023. It was followed by India Times (26.8 million visits, up 82% year-on-year), one of several Indian publishers to climb up the rankings in the past year. Other notable month-on-month gainers included Axios (32.3 million, up 33%), CNBC (113.2 million, up 30%), Newsweek (96.6 million, up 25%) and Zero Hedge (26.3 million, up 13%). The news agency was banned from presidential media briefings after refusing to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America and a legal dispute is continuing.
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.
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Zhang Youxia, widely seen as Xi’s closest military ally, was in January removed from his post. There was plenty of intrigue on the ice heading into the Milan-Cortina Our Members ice dance finals – and that was nothing compared to the drama off it.
