News aggregators (such as Yahoo! News, Google News and Drudge Report), search engines and portals have long been the leading sources of traffic for news websites. Search engines, particularly Google, have grown in importance as sources of traffic for Broadcast Media and Print category websites. Print news websites received 29.7% more traffic from Google in March 2007 than in March 2006, and Broadcast Media sites received 35.9% more traffic from Google in the same time period. The report further examines other sources of traffic, but does not include this chart, which illustrates Google's growing impact on these categories.

The past year has seen significant growth in traffic to celebrity gossip blogs. PerezHilton.com was one of the most visited gossip blogs, increasing in market share of visits by 621% from March 2006 to March 2007. Traffic to the top 20 gossip blogs, as shown on the chart below, increased significantly due to events involving Britney Spears and Anna Nicole Smith. More information on these sites, including demographics, can be found in the report.

With News and Media sites receiving 17% more traffic from search engines in March 2007 versus March 2006, search engines are now more likely to be the first step for Internet users in their search for information about breaking events. Relevant results from video sites and blogs now appear high in search results, thus exposing new users to these non-traditional sources of news and spurring the growth in online video consumption.

LeeAnn Prescott

LeeAnn Prescott is Research Director for Hitwise covering the US market. This post was originally posted on Hitwise blog here.