Nov. 2008 U.S. News Sites See Post-Election Growth

According to Nielsen, in November, NYTimes.com was the top U.S.-based online newspaper site, while MSNBC Digital Network (MSNBC) was the top online current events and news destination, Editor & Publisher reported this week.

The NY Times’ website drew just over 20 million unique visitors in November — a 10% increase over unique traffic to the site last November.

Nov. 2008 Rank	Top 10 Newspaper Sites (ranked by unique users)	Nov. 2008 Unique Traffic (in 000’s)	% Growth Vs. Nov. 2007 Unique Traffic
1	NYTimes.com	20,860	10%
2	LA Times	11,136	143%
3	Washingtonpost.com	11,132	17%
4	USATODAY.com	10,359	8%
5	Wall Street Journal Online	7,427	32%
6	Daily News Online Edition	5,888	120%
7	Boston.com	5,436	12%
8	Chicago Tribune	4,894	81%
9	New York Post	4,490	32%
10	SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle	4,359	20%
Source: The Nielsen Company (November 2008).

Meanwhile, MSNBC saw 41.9% year over year growth, reaching 41.8 million unique visitors last month, according to Nielsen. 

MSNBC edged past CNN Digital Network (CNN), which drew 41.5 million unique visitors during the month — a 27% increase over its November 2007 unique audience.

Nov. 2008 Rank	Top 10 Online Current Events/News Destinations  (ranked by unique users)	Nov. 2008 Unique Traffic (in 000’s)	% Growth Vs. Nov. 2007 Unique Traffic
1	MSNBC Digital Network	41,858	41%
2	CNN Digital Network	41,481	27%
3	Yahoo! News	38,763	25%
4	AOL News	21,027	4%
5	NYTimes.com	20,860	10%
6	Tribune Newspapers	19,208	33%
7	Fox News Digital Network	18,378	131%
8	Google News	14,404	29%
9	Gannett Newspapers and Newspaper Division	13,999	14%
10	ABCNEWS Digital Network	13,350	33%
Source: The Nielsen Company (November 2008).

Despite the conclusion of the U.S. presidential election, The Huffington Post (ranked #21) continued to see the fastest growth among the top 30 sites. The site’s unique audience increased 270% over November 2007 — to 7 million unique visitors.  However, Huffington’s unique audience declined from October 2008, when the site’s unique visitors grew by 448% year over year to 8.1 million.

Fox News Digital Network was the second fastest growing site among the top 30 — up 131% over November 2007.

Among the top 30 newspaper sites, the Minneapolis Star Tribune (ranked #12) saw the fastest growth.  The site’s unique audience increased 265% over November 2007 — to 3.5 million unique visitors. 

The Detroit News (ranked #25) was the second fastest growing site among the to 30 — up 232% over November 2007.

Overall, all but one of the top 30 online news outlets and all but four of the top 30 newspaper websites attracted larger online audiences in November 2008 than they did the prior November.

View the top 30 newspaper websites for November in Editor & Publisher.

View the top 30 online news outlets for November in Editor & Publisher.

Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings on MSNBC.com.