The New York Post saw the biggest decline – dropping 11% of traffic month-on-month – followed by The New York Times, which dropped 10% to 336 million visits. All but two of the top 50 news websites in the US saw visits grow month-on-month amid an eventful July for political news. The four sites that dropped off the top 50 to make room for them were climate site The Cooldown, which had been enjoying a rapid traffic rise in recent months, local publishers Patch.com and KSL.com, and current affairs magazine The Atlantic. In July every site in the top ten saw month-on-month traffic growth, likely driven by blockbuster news events including the first assassination attempt on Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s departure from the presidential race. Two-thirds of the top news sites in the US saw traffic shrink month-on-month in August following a bumper July. Despite its robust politics offering, Axios (23.3 million) was the top 50 site with the largest monthly traffic fall, losing 17.4% of its visits compared with September.
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The BBC visits the Iranian capital for the first time since authorities used unprecedented force to put down protests last month. Visits to the Gannett-owned site were up by 32% year-on-year to 151.4 million – echoing its year-on-year growth rate last month. The Independent is one of several UK newsbrands along with The Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Mirror, Express and the BBC that have recently put focus on expansion in the US. The Daily Mail Olika speltyper remained the best-ranked British newsbrand in the ranking (107.7 million visits) in tenth, one place ahead of the BBC (101 million).
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Among the top ten sites in the US, three were up compared to June 2024 (New York Times, People, BBC and Google News) and seven saw an increase compared to May. This is despite The Independent seeing the biggest year-on-year fall in traffic, down 56% to 16.4 million. In July, BBC saw a 15% month-on-month drop in views following the launch of a dynamic paywall for users in the US at the end of June. September was a busier news month, including the assassination of right-wing activist and podcaster Charlie Kirk. Syndication website MSN saw the biggest drop year on year among the top ten by more than a third (39.5% to 144 million visits). Athlon Sports followed Forbes in year-on-year traffic decline with a drop in visits of 48% to 290.3 million, along with AP News (down 46% to 78.5 million visits).
In terms of annual growth Athlon Sports and The Cooldown again topped the charts, with both seeing greater than 300% year-on-year growth. The New York Times extended its lead over CNN has the most popular news website in the US according to Press Gazette’s latest top-50 ranking. The US Sun has been affected by Google’s algorithm changes and reduced the size of its newsroom in September to target fewer key content areas. A third of the top 50 lost traffic year-over-year, with the largest decline seen at the US version of the UK’s un-paywalled Sun tabloid (23 million, down 63.8% year-over-year).
- 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.
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- 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.
- The largest gains month-on month were at political and hard news sites, again reflecting a historic July for news.
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Press Gazette’s top-50 ranking of US news shows the New York Times hold its lead versus CNN in top spot with 479.3 million visits in the month. AP News grew 44.6% year on year to 110.9 million monthly visits, according to Similarweb data. Legal battles between AP News and Donald Trump have not done the news agency’s popularity any harm as it was one of the fastest-growing news websites in the US in April 2025.
Economists had forecast a monthly payroll gain of 75,000, according to polling from financial data company FactSet. Diagnoses in people younger than 55 have nearly doubled since 1995. Email to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our “Letters Page” blog The largest site in the US remained The New York Times (482.7 million visits), followed by CNN (398.8 million) and Fox News (270.2 million). The Independent’s chief executive Christian Broughton told Press Gazette last year that US expansion, along with e-commerce, Independent TV, reader revenues and AI, are the main drivers of growth for the publisher. Ranked 42nd in this month’s top 50, the site was launched by founder and CEO of the sports media outlet Bleacher Report Dave Finocchio and Anna Robertson, an ABC and Yahoo News executive, and purports to be the “first mainstream climate brand” in the US.
The biggest month-on-month increase in June was at The Times of Israel, which saw its visits almost double to 23.7 million in the US (up 98%). The other newsbrands to report month-on-month growth were Newsbreak (up 6%), SFGate (4%), USA Today (3%), and LA Times and India Times (both 1%). Similarly six sites reported month-on-month growth for August, with this hugely increasing to 35 in September.
The US Sun followed on both growth metrics, up 52% year on year and 59% month on month to 34.9 million visits. In contrast to the annual figures, however, all of the ten biggest sites saw month-on-month growth of at least 3% in January. It was followed by People (161.4 million visits, up 16% year-on-year) and both were the only large sites to see year-on-year growth for the second month in a row. The Independent also featured among the fastest-growing websites year-on-year coming in fifth place having seen visits up 40% compared to last January. It was followed by independently run consumer-focused science news site sciencealert.com (24.4 million visits, up 66% month-on-month). Month-on-month, both Newsweek (up 31% compared to February) and The Cool Down were beaten by publishing group Advance Local’s Alabama-focused site al.com (22.6 million visits, up 67% month-on-month).
