Top 30 Global News Sites, By Unique Visitors

By: Jennifer Saba The Huffington Post edged out other news sites in growth -- monthly uniques for the site increased 152% to 7.3 million in January. In December the Huff Post had 6.1 million uniques.

The data is from Nielsen Online, which ranks the top 30 online current events and global news destinations. The panels are based in the United States.

MSNBC tops the list in January with 44 million uniques. The top newspaper Web site in the list is The New York Times at 21 million uniques.

Other sites that experienced big increases include the N.Y. Daily News Online, up 150% to 7.7 million uniques. The Telegraph in the U.K. increased its monthly unique visitors 139% to 5.1 million.

Monthly uniques fell at six online news sites in January. USA Today was down 14% to 10.5 million uniques. In December, four sites experienced declines.

Below is the January list provided by Nielsen (owned by E&P's parent company). The percent change is for January 2009 compared to January 2008. Please note that traffic can vary month to month based on several factors, including news events.

For the December list, go here.

Site/Total Unique Users/Increase or Decrease

MSNBC Digital Network -- 44,844,000 -- 27%
CNN Digital Network -- 41,655,000 -- 17%
Yahoo! News -- 40,499,000 -- 12%
AOL News -- 23,051,000 -- (-3%)
NYTimes.com -- 21,584,000 -- 5%

Tribune Newspapers -- 17,917,000 -- 29%
Fox News Digital Network -- 15,591,000 -- 45%
Google News -- 13,796,000 -- 15%
Gannett Newspapers and Newspaper Division -- 13,758,000 -- 2%
CBS News Digital Network -- 13,223,000 -- 42%

ABCNEWS Digital Network -- 12,771,000 -- (-3%)
washingtonpost.com -- 11,148,000 -- 13%
USATODAY.com -- 10,588,000 -- (-14%)
BBC -- 9,847,000 -- 74%
McClatchy Newspaper Network -- 9,779,000 -- 15%

WorldNow -- 9,773,000 -- (-5%)
Boston.com -- 8,535,000 -- 64%
Advance Internet -- 7,935,000 -- 23%
Hearst Newspapers Digital -- 7,822,000 -- (-1%)
N.Y. Daily News Online Edition -- 7,775,000 -- 150%

MediaNews Group Newspapers -- 7,774,000 -- 43%
TheHuffingtonPost.com -- 7,357,000 -- 152%
Topix -- 7,048,000 -- (-1%)
Cox Newspapers -- 5,940,000 -- 26%
Slate -- 5,655,000 -- 0%

NBC Local Media -- 5,576,000 -- N/A
Gannett Broadcasting -- 5,504,000 -- 1%
Telegraph -- 5,104,000 -- 139%
New York Post Holdings -- 4,992,000 -- 7%
NPR -- 4,903,000 -- 16%