The BBC is the most-visited news website in the world in any language, according to Press Gazette’s new ranking of the world’s top online newsbrands.
The UK broadcaster saw 894.7 million visits in May 2026 according to Similarweb, ranking it ahead of Japan’s Yahoo News with 815.4 million visits.
The BBC has overtaken several publishers in the ranking since Press Gazette’s coverage in May 2025.
However, Similarweb has since changed how its measures BBC traffic to account for the interaction between bbc.com and bbc.co.uk (which redirect users between two sites depending on their location). This means traffic for May 2025 has been revised from the originally reported 474.4 million visits to 912 million.
Brazil’s Globo.com, the news portal of media group Globo, ranked third with 758.7 million visits.
The US has the most news sites in the top 50, with 13 entries featuring. Its highest-ranking site was The New York Times, which listed in fourth place with 592.6 million visits in May 2026.
The US was followed by India, with eight, and then Japan with four.
Poland, Germany and the UK all have three news sites to feature in the top 50.
Most news sites lost traffic year on year in May 2026, with 37 recording declines in visits (compared to 34 in 2025). Some 15 sites saw visits fall by at least 20% year on year.
India’s Hindustan Times posted the biggest drop, down 54% to 122.2 million visits. It was followed by Poland-based Onet, said to be the largest online news source in the country, which was down 41% to 176.8 million.
Indian Express posted the third-biggest decline in traffic year on year, down 40% to 88.9 million.
Eight of the 13 US sites in the top 50 saw traffic decline both month on month and year on year. Google traffic has declined at a faster rate in the US compared to European publishers as AI Mode and AI Overviews were rolled out earlier there, causing the effects to appear sooner.
Qatar’s 24-hour news network Al Jazeera saw the biggest increase in traffic year on year, up 69% to 86.7 million. As seen repeatedly in Press Gazette’s top 50 monthly ranking of news sites, Al Jazeera has sustained year-on-year traffic growth in recent months, a reflection of increased interest in Middle East news after the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on 28 February.
Some 30 of 50 sites saw traffic decline month on month, with Al Jazeera’s traffic dropping the fastest (down 38%), followed by India’s ABP Live (down 22% to 101.3 million) and CNN (down 22% to 357.7 million).
The Daily Mail recorded the highest increase in traffic month on month, up 8.5% to 209.9 million, though this is likely related to its recent switch from mailonline.co.uk to dailymail.com, with the traffic to both domains combined.
Several major newsbrands from other countries missed the top 50 altogether: France’s daily newspaper Le Figaro fell short by around three million visits, ranking 52nd with 80.3 million, while Le Monde ranked in 71st place with 70 million visits in May. Finnish tabloid paper Iltalehti trailed just behind Le Monde with 69.5 million visits.
News website | Country | Flag | May 26 visits | YoY % change | MoM % change | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | UK | 894,721,316 | −1.9% | −2.4% | ||
2 | Japan | 815,360,187 | −11.5% | 0.4% | ||
3 | Brazil | 758,658,069 | −4.6% | −0.7% | ||
4 | US | 592,641,900 | −5.1% | −6.7% | ||
5 | US | 452,052,320 | −9.7% | 3.2% | ||
6 | US | 357,723,437 | −23.0% | −22.0% | ||
7 | China | 345,335,471 | −18.3% | 1.2% | ||
8 | India | 309,494,917 | −19.0% | −3.2% | ||
9 | US | 286,754,115 | −11.1% | −1.0% | ||
10 | UK | 275,639,205 | −6.7% | −8.4% | ||
11 | US | 229,904,834 | −9.7% | −7.8% | ||
12 | Brazil | 227,286,159 | −21.7% | 1.5% | ||
13 | US | 221,490,760 | 1.1% | 1.8% | ||
14 | South Korea | 214,594,125 | −10.6% | 1.9% | ||
15 | UK | 209,926,121 | −6.5% | 8.5% | ||
16 | India | 207,239,219 | 10.3% | 3.3% | ||
17 | Argentina | 199,016,008 | −32.7% | −6.9% | ||
18 | Germany | 194,466,741 | 2.0% | −3.9% | ||
19 | Japan | 180,804,029 | 3.5% | 0.6% | ||
20 | Poland | 176,848,381 | −40.8% | −0.3% | ||
21 | US | 166,767,920 | −13.0% | −1.2% | ||
22 | US | 164,453,460 | 49.1% | 0.0% | ||
23 | South Korea | 156,916,716 | 35.6% | 8.2% | ||
24 | Poland | 155,206,981 | −38.5% | −3.6% | ||
25 | India | 147,143,475 | −17.5% | −3.7% | ||
26 | US | 140,001,576 | −19.0% | −2.7% | ||
27 | Vietnam | 132,605,331 | −2.4% | −2.1% | ||
28 | Japan | 129,415,311 | −32.0% | 1.5% | ||
29 | Poland | 124,782,568 | −25.8% | 0.4% | ||
30 | India | 122,202,742 | −53.5% | −10.0% | ||
31 | Indonesia | 119,158,298 | −24.5% | −3.2% | ||
32 | Germany | 116,021,304 | −26.8% | −0.9% | ||
33 | China | 115,846,148 | −15.0% | 2.8% | ||
34 | India | 113,717,551 | −27.9% | 4.4% | ||
35 | Spain | 112,661,766 | 1.1% | −2.0% | ||
36 | Italy | 111,652,188 | −1.5% | −3.1% | ||
37 | Germany | 109,243,773 | −16.7% | −16.5% | ||
38 | Spain | 107,914,895 | 0.5% | 7.2% | ||
39 | Russia | 105,883,701 | −16.6% | −11.9% | ||
40 | India | 101,289,575 | −2.1% | −22.2% | ||
41 | US | 99,971,466 | −20.0% | −9.0% | ||
42 | US | 95,779,159 | −24.9% | 1.5% | ||
43 | India | 95,581,800 | 10.3% | 0.8% | ||
44 | US | 92,749,205 | −26.9% | −14.1% | ||
45 | The Netherlands | 91,906,146 | 9.6% | −0.1% | ||
46 | Czech Republic | 89,734,103 | −2.9% | −3.2% | ||
47 | Japan | 89,482,939 | 3.7% | 0.2% | ||
48 | India | 88,905,480 | −40.4% | 0.4% | ||
49 | Qatar | 86,715,217 | 68.5% | −38.3% | ||
50 | US | 83,024,680 | 2.3% | −8.7% |
