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The Daily Mail (down 7.5% month-on-month to 113 million), which was the ninth most popular news site in the US in both July and August, dropped in September to tenth. The contraction was sharpest at Yahoo Finance (down 11.3% month-on-month to 144.4 million visits) and third-placed Fox News (down 11.2% to 260.2 million). But for most publishers visits have nonetheless improved year-on-year, with three-fifths of the top 50 recording traffic increases of at least 10% compared with September 2023. Almost all the top 50 news sites in the US saw traffic fall in September, deepening a decline that began in August. Newsweek (up 20.1%), The Atlantic (26.6 million, up 16.2% month-on-month), The Washington Post (109.7 million, up 8.7%) and Substack (53.9 million, up 7.9%) were similarly among the fastest growers. The broader traffic bounce back may reflect increased news interest in the run-up to the US election, which happened in the first week of November.

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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?

USA Today (128.8 million, down 19%) was the fastest faller among the group, followed by CNN (345.1 million, down 14%) and BBC News (112.3 million, down 11%). However they are also in spite of an eventful February for US news which included an airplane crash in Washington DC and an Oval Office row between Donald Trump and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Since November 2023 Similarweb has excluded the figures for edition.cnn.com in its report to Press Gazette since they are counted under the main domain. The smallest increases were seen at the AP (4%), MSN (3%) and CNN (2%), while the New York Post lost a negligible proportion of traffic. Fox News and Yahoo Finance (155.9 million) were respectively flat and up 3% compared with last year.

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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 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 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. NBC News was up 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, putting it in tenth place. The BBC and NBC News saw the most traffic growth among the ten biggest news websites in the US in September, according to the latest Similarweb data. Ten news websites saw their monthly visits decline by 40% or more in November compared to a year earlier, according to the latest data from Similarweb.

• The sharpest month-on-month fall was seen at January’s fastest grower, The Los Angeles Times.
• Since November 2023 Similarweb has excluded the figures for edition.cnn.com in its report to Press Gazette since they are counted under the main domain.
• All of the top-ten most-visited news sites in the US saw traffic growth when compared with June, according to figures from digital intelligence platform Similarweb.
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The biggest riser already on the charts was progressive news site Raw Story, which climbed eight spots to 37th place on the back of a 24% month-on-month traffic increase to 33.2 million. The contraction is particularly pronounced among the top ten US news sites by traffic, where eight publishers saw visits drop compared to July. Going the opposite direction, however, was the US outpost of fellow British publisher The Sun (22.2 million visits), which dropped 15 places to 50th on the back of 34.9% month-on-month and 65.1% year-on-year traffic declines. Athlon Sports (up 218.4% year-on-year to 35 million) was the fastest riser in the ranks of the top 50, jumping eight places to 33rd on the back of 18% month-on-month traffic growth, the second most growth of any publisher in the top 50. Also possibly reflecting interest in the US presidential election, the fastest monthly growth among the top 50 was seen at Real Clear Politics, where visits were up nearly 40% compared with September. Among the broader top 50 news sites in the US, sports news site athlonsports.com (34.7 million) continued its reign as the fastest-growing publisher, nearly quadrupling its web visits compared to October 2023.

The biggest year-on-year drop among the top ten was seen at Gannett’s USA Today, which shed 17% of its March 2024 traffic to attract 134.7 million visits last month. Three in five of the top 50 news websites in the US recorded year-on-year growth, with the biggest percentage increase seen at sports news site Athlon Sports. Rival title The Mirror, which is yet to feature in the top 50 US news websites, grew 631% year on year to 15.1 million visits in April 2025 according to Similarweb data. Substack rose to 19th position with growth of 42.5% year on year to 67.7 million visits in the US for its network of newsletter-driven websites. Only 15 out of the top 50 news websites in the US grew traffic year on year in May, according to the latest data from Similarweb. More than half (29) of the 50 biggest news websites in the US saw a month-on-month decline.