Traffic Trends Among Major News Websites: A Look at March 2025
In March 2025, many American and Canadian political news websites experienced a significant increase in web traffic, coinciding with a turbulent political environment in the U.S. amid the early days of the second Trump administration.
The Associated Press led the charge with 148 million visits, boasting a remarkable 64% increase from the previous year. Following closely was Reuters with 111.4 million visits, representing a 54% rise, and Politico, which saw 53.5 million visits, marking a 29% growth. The only site to outpace these figures was India.com, which captured 132.7 million visits, an impressive 86% year-on-year growth.
Another notable contributor to this growth is Substack, a platform that has attracted many small political writing outlets. Substack saw its traffic jump by 54% year-on-year, reaching 116.9 million visits.
While the figures show some positives, the overall landscape for the top 50 English-language news websites was mixed. Around half of these sites saw a decline in traffic compared to March 2024. However, 11 websites recorded a growth of 10% or more, with eight of those growing by 20% or more.
Among the ten most-visited sites, seven experienced increased traffic. People magazine stood out with 195.9 million visits, marking an 11% uptick. The New York Times followed with 680.5 million visits (up 6%), along with Yahoo Finance at 248.5 million (up 5%) and BBC News with 678.6 million (up 4%).
This month also saw a change in how the BBC’s global traffic is calculated. Previously, visits to bbc.co.uk were combined with bbc.com, likely leading to double-counting. The new approach combines figures from the BBC’s UK and U.S. platforms. As a result, BBC News dropped from first to a close second behind The New York Times, now showing just over one billion visits.
Comparing month-over-month figures, every site in the top ten recorded at least a 5% increase. March benefitted from being longer than February, with The Guardian seeing the largest growth at 334.8 million visits, also up 11% from February. The New York Times mirrored this growth, as did Yahoo Finance and Google News, both recording growth of around 9%.
Looking at the broader picture, most of the top 50 English-language news sites saw traffic increase month-on-month. CNBC stood out with a 30% boost, reaching 140.6 million visits, followed by Newsweek at 115.2 million (up 26%) and Business Insider with 83.7 million (up 23%).
Despite some positive trends, many Indian news sites encountered declines in traffic, both year-on-year and month-on-month. Among the eleven Indian sites in the global top 50, six saw their traffic drop from the previous month and nine experienced a decline compared to the previous year. The sharpest decline was at livemint.com, with visits down by 43%, followed by News18 and India Today, showing noticeable drops as well.
In summary, March 2025 illustrated a complex mixture of growth and decline across major news websites, highlighting the dynamic nature of news consumption in a rapidly changing political landscape.
