News site traffic is shrinking, but Google and AI aren’t solely to blame

 

Nearly every top U.S. news site lost traffic in July. From paywalls to shifting habits, publishers saw single or double-digit declines.

Visits to nearly every major U.S. news site dropped in July. Only six of the top 50 U.S. news websites grew traffic year over year (YoY), according to PressGazette’s monthly ranking of the top 50 news websites in the U.S. in July, based on Similarweb data.

By the numbers. The New York Times led with 462 million visits in July (down 7% YoY). CNN (323 million, down 38%) and Fox News (249 million, down 26%) followed.

• The steepest YoY declines came at Forbes (-50%), Daily Mail (-44%), NBC News (-42%), HuffPost (-42%), Washington Post (-40%), and U.S. News (-40%).
• The biggest winners were India Times (+46%), Substack (+40%), Newsbreak (+24%).

Between the lines. Publishers of all sizes are being impacted – and you can’t blame all the losses entirely on generative AI platforms like ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews.

• For example, the BBC’s U.S. paywall experiment coincided with visits to the site falling 16% YoY (100 million); its rank dropped from 7 to 12. Month over month, BBC traffic slid 15%. That’s the third-largest drop after Reuters (-24%) and AP (-16%).

The big picture. As Barry Adams, an SEO and audience growth consultant, wrote on LinkedIn, AI is the “obvious scapegoat.” But it isn’t just about AI. News traffic likely peaked last year. A saturated market, shifting consumption habits, and paywalls are all squeezing publishers:

• “…From now on every click is a zero-sum contest for attention and revenue. It’ll only get harder to win online. You have to be better on every front; your content, your value proposition, your SEO, your multichannel strategy, everything needs to align,” Adams wrote.

Why we care. Even as overall visits slide, Google remains the backbone of publisher traffic (and the online starting point for searchers) with Discover now surpassing Search as the biggest driver. That shift leaves news websites more dependent than ever on Google’s distribution choices, while direct and social referrals continue to erode.

The rankings. Top 50 news websites in the US in July: BBC drops five places as paywall introduced

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