List of News Websites
National papers, broadcasters, wire services, local outlets, magazines and news portals, all in one categorized list. See how many news domains we track, which lead in popularity and what each row tells you.
- Domains with News/Media
- 1,249,566
- News as main subject
- 1,060,006
- IAB v2 News and Politics
- 1,040,744
- Political sites
- 648,425
- News sites in the popular 300,000
- 22,958
How many news websites are there?
Across over 120 million categorized domains, 1,249,566 carry the News/Media category. That is about 1.2% of all domains, yet news sites make up 7.7% of the 300,000 most popular domains. News is a small share of the web with a very large share of attention.
All news and media
Every domain where news or media publishing is part of the site, including portals and broadcasters with entertainment sections.
News first
Domains where news and media is the main subject. The tightest list for news inclusion and media research.
IAB v3 News
Domains whose IAB version 3 Tier 1 subject is News. Many publishers instead carry a topic tier such as sports or business.
IAB v3 Politics
Domains about political issues, civic affairs and elections, which often sit next to news lists.
Why the IAB count is smaller: a sports daily or a financial paper is news, but its IAB subject is Sports or Business and Finance. The News/Media category catches all of them; the IAB tiers then tell you what they cover.
Top 10 news websites
The ten leading news websites in our data, ranked by popularity among real users. English language publishers lead because they reach readers in many countries at once.
- nytimes.comUS national newspaper with global readership
- bbc.co.ukUK public broadcaster, home edition
- theguardian.comUK daily with US and Australian editions
- businessinsider.comBusiness and technology news
- telegraph.co.ukUK national daily
- cnn.comUS cable news network
- dailymail.co.ukUK tabloid with a very large online audience
- nbcnews.comUS broadcast network news
- apnews.comNews agency serving readers and other publishers
- foxnews.comUS cable news network
Just outside the top 10 come the international edition of a UK broadcaster, a large web portal, the leading German and French news magazines and dailies, and the national broadcasters of Germany, Finland and Norway. In a country view, the leaders change completely.
News websites by country
Of the 22,958 news domains among the 300,000 most popular sites, 13,615 have a country assigned. The others serve international audiences or several countries. Here are the ten largest shares.
Italy ranks second
Italy has a dense web of regional and city papers, each with its own site. That lifts its share well above its population rank.
The UK ranks lower than expected
Large UK publishers write for a global audience, so many are not tied to one country in the data. Their reach shows up in the global top 10 instead.
Local news matters
Most news domains are local or regional. A national list that keeps only famous brands misses most of the places where people read about their town.
For a market view beyond news, see Italy domains, Brazil domains and United States domains.
News subcategories: IAB tiers and topics
The IAB Content Taxonomy splits news sites by what they cover. These are the most common subjects among popular news domains, and the political subcategories across the full database.
| Subject (IAB v3) | Popular news domains | What these sites are |
|---|---|---|
| News (general) | 7,901 | National, regional and local general news |
| Politics > Civic affairs | 3,043 | Local government news, public notices, city portals |
| Business and Finance > Industries | 2,409 | Trade press, media and publishing industry news |
| Entertainment > Music | 1,076 | Radio stations and music news |
| Business and Finance > Business | 787 | Business dailies and economic news |
| Sports > Soccer | 689 | Football papers and club news |
| Entertainment > Television | 689 | TV channels and broadcaster sites |
| Politics > Political Issues & policy | 434 | Political commentary and policy news |
| Business and Finance > Economy | 248 | Economic and markets coverage |
| Science > Weather | 157 | Weather news and forecast publishers |
Politics across the full database
Political Issues & policy: think tanks, campaigns and commentary.
Civic affairs: local government news and community information.
Elections: candidates, parties and election coverage.
The IAB Content Taxonomy 3.1 page explains the current tree, and IAB 3.0 vs 3.1 shows what changed.
Popularity: from global brands to local papers
The popularity bands show how concentrated attention is. These are the news domains in each global band among the 300,000 most popular sites.
| Global popularity band | News domains | Typical sites |
|---|---|---|
| Top 1,000 | 104 | Global publishers and the leading broadcaster in each large country |
| 1,001 to 5,000 | 529 | National dailies, news portals and sports papers |
| 5,001 to 10,000 | 513 | Smaller national titles and large regional groups |
| 10,001 to 50,000 | 3,267 | Regional papers, trade press, radio stations |
| 50,001 to 100,000 | 3,024 | City papers and niche news sites |
| 100,001 to 500,000 | 13,349 | Local outlets, blogs with news focus, special interest |
The long tail is where most news lives. More than half of the popular news domains sit in the 100,001 to 500,000 band, and far more sit below it in the full database.
News has more domains in the global top 1,000 than shopping, education or travel in our popular set. Few categories turn so much reader loyalty into daily visits.
Types of news websites in the list
"News website" covers very different publishers. Knowing the types helps you decide which ones belong in your list and which to filter out.
National dailies
Print brands with a full online newsroom. They lead national popularity bands and carry broad IAB news subjects.
Broadcasters
Public and private TV and radio groups. Their sites mix news, live streams and entertainment, so they often carry several categories.
Wire services
Agencies that sell stories to other outlets and also publish for readers. Few in number, but widely quoted.
Local and regional papers
The largest group by count. Many carry the civic affairs subject because they cover councils, schools and local services.
Business and trade press
Financial dailies and industry titles. Their IAB subject is usually Business and Finance rather than News.
Sports papers
Daily sports titles and club news. Very popular in Italy, Spain and Latin America, and tagged with the sport they cover.
Portals and aggregators
Sites that collect stories from many sources next to mail, weather and search. They carry News/Media plus technology categories.
Weather publishers
Forecast sites with editorial news. They carry Science > Weather and often sit in news lists because of their daily reach.
Questions buyers ask before they buy a news list
Most teams worry about the same few things. Here are straight answers.
Will the list go stale?
All domains are refreshed monthly and new domains are added every day, with checks after a week and a month. Closed outlets move to parked or other categories.
Are fake news sites in it?
Sites that present themselves as news are categorized by their content like any other site. Pair the list with popularity bands and domain age to spot thin imitations.
What about paywalled papers?
Paywalled publishers are included. Their public pages, section fronts and headlines are enough to show what they cover.
Is the list politically balanced?
The list describes what sites cover, not their stance. Outlets of every political leaning are categorized the same way, by subject.
Are non-English sites covered?
Yes. A large share of news domains in the data are not English language. The country split above shows how wide the coverage is.
Do I get subdomains and sections?
The list works at domain level, with one row per domain. Large publishers with separate country domains appear once per domain.
Who buys a list of news websites, and why
News lists answer one question for many teams: which sites are real publishers, and what do they cover?
Advertisers and agencies
Build news inclusion lists so campaigns run on real publishers, not on made-for-advertising pages. See brand safety advertising.
Adtech platforms
Label supply by news topic for contextual deals and private marketplaces. See programmatic advertising and RTB.
Media monitoring and PR
Decide which sources to track for brand mentions, per country and per beat.
Researchers
Study news deserts, local news decline and how political content spreads, with a stable list of outlets. See market research intelligence.
Security and trust teams
Spot sites that imitate news outlets. A new domain that looks like a paper but has no history is a classic warning sign.
Publishers
Benchmark competitors, find partners for content syndication and size regional markets. See publisher monetization.
Columns included in the news list
Every news domain comes with the full set of fields from the database. One row per domain, delivered as CSV, Parquet or JSON.
| Field | Example for nytimes.com | Why it matters for news |
|---|---|---|
| Domain | nytimes.com | Join key for ad logs and monitoring tools |
| IAB v2 Tier 1 to 4 | News and Politics | Works with platforms still on version 2 |
| IAB v3 Tier 1 to 4 | News | Topic of coverage in the current taxonomy |
| Web filtering categories | News/Media, Political | Separates news, politics, blogs and portals |
| Audience personas | Typical reader profiles | Audience planning on news inventory |
| Country | United States | National and regional news lists |
| Global popularity band | Top 1,000 | Tiering premium and long-tail publishers |
| Country popularity band | Top 1,000 in its country | Leaders of each national market |
A second example: apnews.com carries IAB v2 News and Politics, IAB v3 News, the News/Media and Political categories, country United States and the global top 1,000 band. Check any outlet in the domain checker.
Ready-made file: the News Domains List
If you need a news list today and do not want to filter the full database, there is a ready product. It holds about 1.04 million domains with the IAB version 2 News and Politics subject, with the same fields as the database.
One file, instant download after checkout, for teams that want news and politics domains without licensing the whole database.
buy the News Domains ListChoose the ready list when
You need news and politics domains only, for one project or one product, and the IAB version 2 news subject fits your definition.
Choose the database when
You need news plus other categories, monthly refreshes, daily new domains, both IAB versions or the lookup API.
Combine them when
You start with the ready list for a quick launch and move to the database once your use grows.
Which definition of news? The ready file follows the IAB version 2 News and Politics subject, which is the definition many ad platforms still use. The database adds the News/Media web filtering category, which also catches sports, business and weather publishers whose IAB subject is not news.
How news sites change, and how the list keeps up
News is a moving target. Outlets merge, local papers close, and new sites appear around every election and major event.
Day one
A newly registered news-like domain is categorized from its content. About 300,000 new domains go through this every day.
After one week
The domain is checked again. Many news sites publish only a holding page at launch and add articles later.
After one month
A third check confirms whether the site became a real outlet, stayed empty or turned into something else.
Every month after
All other domains are refreshed monthly, so closed papers and parked domains drop out of news lists.
Made-for-advertising pages: some sites look like news but exist mainly to show ads. Our made for advertising sites list page explains how buyers separate them from real publishers.
For more on refresh cycles, see coverage and freshness.
Building a news list that fits your job
The same file supports very different news lists. These four filters cover most requests.
1. Strict or broad
Keep only domains where news is the main subject, or every site with a news section.
2. Topic
Use IAB tiers for business news, sports news, local civic news or politics.
3. Market
Filter by country and by domain ending. Endings such as .news (7,108 news domains) and .tv (8,953) also signal media sites.
4. Reach
Use global or country popularity bands to separate premium publishers from the local long tail.
A news inclusion list in five checks
Advertisers who want to support journalism without landing on low-quality pages often follow a simple routine. Each step uses a field that is already in the file.
| Check | Field used | What it removes |
|---|---|---|
| Keep news as main subject | Web filtering categories | Brand sites and blogs with a small news corner |
| Set the markets you serve | Country and domain ending | Outlets in languages your ads do not speak |
| Require a minimum reach | Global or country popularity band | Thin sites with almost no readers |
| Choose topics that fit the brand | IAB v3 tiers | Coverage areas the brand prefers to avoid |
| Review the edge cases by hand | All fields together | The few sites no rule can judge alone |
The result is a list that is large enough to scale and tight enough to defend. Many teams also keep local news in the list on purpose, because local outlets often have the most loyal readers.
For the wider media industry, see news and media domains. For how contextual and behavioral targeting differ on news inventory, read contextual vs behavioral targeting.
News website list FAQ
How many news websites are there?
Our database of over 120 million categorized domains contains 1,249,566 domains with the News/Media category. For 1,060,006 of them, news and media is the main subject.
What are the most popular news websites?
Ranked by popularity among real users: nytimes.com, bbc.co.uk, theguardian.com, businessinsider.com, telegraph.co.uk, cnn.com, dailymail.co.uk, nbcnews.com, apnews.com and foxnews.com.
Is there a ready-made list of news websites?
Yes. The News Domains List is a ready file of about 1.04 million news and politics domains that you can buy and download directly.
Can I get news websites for one country?
Yes. Each domain carries a country field where a country can be assigned, plus a popularity band within that country, so you can build national news lists.
Does the list separate politics from general news?
Yes. Political sites carry their own category, and the IAB tiers separate news, political issues, civic affairs and elections.
Who buys news website lists?
Advertisers and adtech platforms building news inclusion lists, media monitoring and PR firms, researchers who study the news ecosystem, and security teams that watch news-like sites.
Get the full list of news websites
All 1.25 million news and media domains with both IAB versions, country, popularity bands and the lookup API, inside the licensed database.
IAB and the IAB Content Taxonomy are trademarks of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, used here only to identify the taxonomy. Website names belong to their owners and are listed only to describe our data. URL Categorization Database is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by any of them.