EXCLUSIVE: Top 30 News Destination Sites in July -- 'NYT' Down, 'Examiner' and Huff Post Up

By: Jennifer Saba NYTimes.com was bumped out of the top five global news destinations in July, according to Nielsen Online. The site's monthly unique users fell 27% year-over-year to 14.2 million, ranking the site at No. 8. Right behind NYTimes.com is Google News with 13.3 million uniques (up 24% year-over-year).

ABCNEWS Digital Network elbowed its way to the top 5 with 16.3 million uniques, an increase of 21%.

NOTE: The July numbers for all sites are drawn from a new extended panel that Nielsen introduced in June -- so year-over-year comparisons could vary significantly as a result.

Traffic at the Examiner newspaper group soared 502% to 7.6 million unique users in July 2009 compared with 1.2 million uniques in July 2008. As usually the case, Huffington Post also made giant strides -- up 96%.

Below are the top 30 current events and global news destinations for the month of July ranked by unique users. The percent change compares July 2009 uniques to July 2008 uniques. 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 share the same parent company.)

For June's list go here

Yahoo! News -- 45,688,000 -- 30%
CNN Digital Network -- 38,651,000 -- 17%
MSNBC Digital Network -- 36,550,000 -- (-3%)
AOL News -- 25,322,000 -- 15%
ABCNEWS Digital Network -- 16,359,000 -- 21%

Tribune Newspapers -- 16,302,000 -- 1%
Fox News Digital Network -- 15,720,000 -- 36%
NYTimes.com -- 14,277,000 -- (-27%)
Google News -- 13,369,000 -- 24%
Gannett Newspapers and Newspaper Division -- 13,231,000 -- 0%

McClatchy Newspaper Network -- 12,612,000 -- 22%
washingtonpost.com -- 11,565,000 -- 29%
CBS News Digital Network -- 10,689,000 -- 16%
USATODAY.com -- 9,761,000 -- (-6%)
Advance Internet -- 9,623,000 -- 20%

Daily News Online Edition -- 9,131,000 -- 112%
Hearst Newspapers Digital -- 8,490,000 -- 3%
NBC Local Media -- 8,017,000 -- N/A
TheHuffingtonPost.com -- 7,809,000 -- 96%
WorldNow -- 7,717,000 -- (-15%)

BBC -- 7,637,000 -- (-10%)
Examiner.com -- 7,611,000 -- 502%
MediaNews Group Newspapers -- 7,225,000 -- (-5%)
New York Post Holdings -- 6,535,000 -- 32%
Topix -- -- 6,262,000 -- 1%

The Slate Group Websites -- 6,154,000 -- 7%
MailOnline -- 5,560,000 -- 20%
Boston.com -- 5,274,000 -- 8%
Cox Newspapers -- 5,163,000 -- (-12%)
Gannett Broadcasting -- 4,785,000 -- (-4%)