While some say Facebook referral traffic has returned this year, others complain that the addition of AI-written summaries to Google search results has deeply impacted click-through rates to articles. Publishers have complained in recent years about falling referral traffic from Google and Facebook. The Times of Israel fell back out of the top 50 after its visits almost doubled in June to enter in 43rd place. Meanwhile the vast majority (44) saw fewer visits than they did a year earlier in July 2024. Some content remains free to all users regardless of whether they have hit the paywall, including select global breaking news stories. The BBC launched a dynamic paywall for users in the US at the end of June, charging $8.99 (£6.55) per month or $49.99 (£36.40) per year.
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.
- More than half (29) of the 50 biggest news websites in the US saw a month-on-month decline.
- British news site The Independent (34.8 million), which claimed in November to have become the biggest British-born news site in the US according to Comscore data, also notched 70.4% year-on-year growth.
- On the other end of the scale the fastest year-on-year traffic losses were seen by the Los Angeles Times (25.8 million, down 30% on October 2023), the Daily Mail (104.1 million, down 22.8%) and Fox News.
- The American University of Beirut has long been a haven for cats abandoned in times if war or crisis, but in recent years the feline population has grown dramatically.
- And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, that will help power its first-of-its kind local news program to support the U.S. local news ecosystem.
- Email to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our “Letters Page” blog
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There is plenty of intrigue on the ice heading into the Milan-Cortina ice dance finals – and that is nothing compared to the drama off it. Norwegian medal-winning biathlete Sturla Holm Laegreid apologises again for cheating on his ex-girlfriend. Police had searched the home of the person, who was taken into custody at a traffic stop. The briefing which includes “high value commercial opportunities” in Helmand province, appears in the Epstein files. Nine people have been killed and 25 injured in the shootings at a school and home in a rural community in western Canada.
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The 33-year-old grandson of President JFK says he’s running for office to represent people who are \”sick and tired\” of Trump and his chaos. Jill Zarin went viral after she criticized Bad Bunny’s halftime show for too much crotch-grabbing, too little English, and \”literally no white people.\” 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.
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The BBC’s Regan Morris details what the celebrity gathering was like ahead of the awards ceremony next month. Israel’s https://www.foodunfolded.com/article/growing-a-future-with-crops-from-the-past PM is expected to press Trump to pursue a deal that would also cut Iran’s ballistic missile programme and support for armed groups. Winter Olympics bronze medallist Sturla Holm Laegreid says on live TV that he made the “biggest mistake” by cheating on his girlfriend. Thomas Frank’s appointment by Tottenham was a gamble that ended in a storm of toxicity, writes Phil McNulty. What’s happening and who to look out for at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina.
The UK-based Sun was the fastest faller, down 59% year on year to 23 million visits per month, according to Similarweb estimates. The biggest year-on-year increases were at The Arena Group’s Men’s Journal, up 309% compared to June 2024 to 25.1 million visits, and Substack, up 57% to 73.9 million visits. 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.
