Exclusive: Top 30 Most Popular Newspaper Sites for January

By: Jennifer Saba Newsday.com lost its brief lead in popularity over WSJ.com during the month of January. Newsday, which shot up in December as the fourth most visited Web site, dropped to ninth in January. Year over year, Newsday's uniques did grow 59.2% in January.

Nielsen Online (owned by E&P's parent company) provided the most recent data in a custom list of the top 30 newspaper Web sites.

Three newcomers to January's list compared to December's list: The St. Petersburg Times' tampabay.com, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and the Star Tribune of Minneapolis.

As usual, we will follow with a "time spent" chart, which always differs quite a bit.

The Politico's Web site -- aided by the hot political campaign cycle -- made great strides with year-over-year growth though it was coming off a small base. January monthly uniques increased more than 250% to 2.3 million compared to the same month last year but Nielsen notes Jan. 2007 estimates are calculated on small sample sizes and are subject to "increased statistical variability." Still the site climbed up the ranks in January with 2.3 million uniques compared to December's traffic of 1.6 million uniques.

Several things could impact variations in year-over-year comparisons and month-to-month traffic trends, including news events or added features, like in the case of Newsday, popular animated cartoons.

Below, find the complete list of the top 30 newspaper Web sites in January and the year-over-year percent change.

Brand or Channel -- Unique Audience (000) -- Year-over-year % Change

NYTimes.com -- 20,461 -- 45.1%
USATODAY.com -- 12,314 -- 19.4%
washingtonpost.com -- 9,902 -- 14.6%
Wall Street Journal Online -- 6,962 -- 81.4%
LA Times -- 5,715 -- 4.7%

Boston.com -- 5,194 -- 23.7%
SFGate.com/San Francisco Chronicle -- 4,255 -- (-3.9%)
New York Post -- 4,027 -- (-3.5%)
Newsday -- 3,764 -- 59.2%
Chicago Tribune -- 3,185 -- (-15.7%)

Daily News Online Edition -- 3,104 -- 23.3%
Chicago Sun-Times -- 2,695 -- 12.7%
Village Voice -- 2,686 -- 116.4%
Atlanta Journal-Constitution --2,391 -- 8.9%
The Politico -- 2,371 -- 253.4%

Seattle Post-Intelligencer -- 2,256 -- 24.2%
The Houston Chronicle -- 2,208 -- (-37.1%)
DallasNews.com - The Dallas Morning News -- 2,207 -- 6.1%
Azcentral.com -- 2,145 -- 12.0%
Baltimore Sun -- 2,137 -- 44.7%

The Seattle Times -- 1,814 -- (-23.0%)
International Herald Tribune -- 1,789 -- (-15.0%)
NJ.com -- 1,630 -- 29.1%
Detroit Free Press -- 1,574 -- 30.6%
The San Diego Union-Tribune -- 1,529 -- (-26.4%)

Star Tribune -- 1,511 -- 54.2%
The Washington Times -- 1,510 -- (-16.1%)
tampabay.com -- 1,468 -- (-11.7%)
Philly.com -- 1,400 -- 18.6%
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette -- 1,303 -- (-9.9%)