EXCLUSIVE: Huffington Post Passes WashingtonPost.com in Unique Visitors, in September

By: Jennifer Saba Yahoo, CNN and MSNBC still topped the chart, but in one surprising shift The Huffington Post surpassed Washingtonpost.com in unique users in the month of September, new data from Nielsen Online reveals.

The Huff Post was up 26% year-over-year to 9.4 million uniques, while uniques at the Washingtonpost.com dropped almost 30% to 9.2 million.

Meanwhile, the New York Times, which has experienced year-over-year declines in uniques for the past several months -- after Nielsen institute expanded panels -- is on the rise again. The site was up 7% to 21.5 million.

Examiner.com had the highest growth rate in September with uniques advancing 373% to 6.4 million.

Year-over-year comparisons for these current events and global news sites should be viewed with caution, Nielsen emphasized. As of June 2009, the measurement firm vastly expanded its panel -- making it eight times larger. As a result, Nielsen warns that year-over-year trending could be affected for some sites and that the below information only should be used directionally.

Below are the top 30 current events and global news destinations for the month of September ranked by unique users with year-over-year changes. Please note that several factors including news events can cause swings in traffic. Additionally, The Wall Street Journal is included on another Nielsen list, which tracks business and financial sites. (Nielsen Online and E&P are owned by the same company.)

For the August list go here.


Yahoo! News -- 42,649,000 -- 12%
CNN Digital Network -- 38,266,000 -- 3%
MSNBC Digital Network -- 36,511,000 -- (-16%)
AOL News -- 25,733,000 -- 20%
NYTimes.com -- 21,530,000 -- 7%

Fox News Digital Network -- 17,909,000 -- 20%
Tribune Newspapers -- 16,453,000 -- (-9%)
ABCNEWS Digital Network -- 14,631,000 -- (-15%)
Google News -- 14,555,000 -- 8%
Gannett Newspapers and Newspaper Division -- 12,272,000 -- (-10%)

CBS News Digital Network -- 10,575,000 -- (-5%)
McClatchy Newspaper Network -- 10,543,000 -- (-1%)
USATODAY.com -- 9,908,000 -- (-13%)
Advance Internet -- 9,530,000 -- 21%
TheHuffingtonPost.com -- 9,474,000 -- 26%

washingtonpost.com -- 9,239,000 -- (-29%)
MediaNews Group Newspapers -- 8,739,000 -- 30%
Hearst Newspapers Digital -- 7,905,000 -- (-19%)
WorldNow -- 7,828,000 -- (-1%)
BBC -- -- 7,178,000 -- (-23%)

Daily News Online Edition -- 6,824,000 -- 54%
Examiner.com -- 6,474,000 -- 373%
Guardian.co.uk -- 6,043,000 -- 51%
Telegraph -- 5,649,000 -- 38%
Cox Newspapers -- 5,443,000 -- 14%

Boston.com -- 5,231,000 -- (-39%)
MailOnline -- 5,046,000 -- 26%
Topix -- 4,860,000 -- (-25%)
NBC Local Media -- 4,835,000 -- N/A
The Slate Group Websites -- 4,798,000 -- (-12%)