The NY Times’ website drew just over 20 million unique visitors in November — a 10% increase over unique traffic to the site last November.

Meanwhile, MSNBC saw 41.9% year over year growth, reaching 41.8 million unique visitors last month, according to Nielsen. 

MSNBC edged past CNN Digital Network (CNN), which drew 41.5 million unique visitors during the month — a 27% increase over its November 2007 unique audience.

Despite the conclusion of the U.S. presidential election, The Huffington Post (ranked #21) continued to see the fastest growth among the top 30 sites. The site’s unique audience increased 270% over November 2007 — to 7 million unique visitors.  However, Huffington’s unique audience declined from October 2008, when the site’s unique visitors grew by 448% year over year to 8.1 million.

Fox News Digital Network was the second fastest growing site among the top 30 — up 131% over November 2007.

Among the top 30 newspaper sites, the Minneapolis Star Tribune (ranked #12) saw the fastest growth.  The site’s unique audience increased 265% over November 2007 — to 3.5 million unique visitors. 

The Detroit News (ranked #25) was the second fastest growing site among the to 30 — up 232% over November 2007.

Overall, all but one of the top 30 online news outlets and all but four of the top 30 newspaper websites attracted larger online audiences in November 2008 than they did the prior November.

View the top 30 newspaper websites for November in Editor & Publisher.

View the top 30 online news outlets for November in Editor & Publisher.

Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings on MSNBC.com.

The NY Times’ website drew just over 20 million unique visitors in September — a 37% increase over unique traffic to the site last September.

Meanwhile, MSNBC saw 44% year over year growth, reaching 43.2 million unique visitors in September, according to Nielsen.

Surging interest in the U.S. presidential campaign likely drove growth for several U.S. news sites in September. 

The Anchorage Daily News in Alaska cracked Nielsen’s top 30 newspaper websites ranking for the first time, following a 928% jump in unique visitors over last September.  Sudden demand for news on Republican Vice Presidential nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in September may have driven that dramatic increase. 

Two politics-centric sites, Politico.com (+219%) and TheHuffingtonPost.com (+457%), also saw notably large year over year percentage growth in September.

Meanwhile, Boston.com’s 122% above average growth can perhaps be attributed to Autumn baseball fever in the Hub.

Overall, all but three of the top 30 online news outlets, and all but one of the top 30 newspaper websites, attracted larger online audiences in September 2008 than they did the prior September.

View the top 30 newspaper websites for September in Editor & Publisher.

View the top 30 online news outlets for September in Editor & Publisher.

Read coverage of Nielsen’s findings in the (Toronto) Globe and Mail.

Nineteen of the top 30 newspaper websites recorded double-digit, year-over-year percentage increases in unique traffic in July, according to data from Nielsen Online.

Ottaway Newspapers (+167%) saw the largest gain in unique visitors.  The Wall Street Journal also recorded an impressive 94% increase in unique traffic, while number one ranked NYtimes.com saw a 38% uptick.

But at 14 of the top 30 newspaper sites, the average number of minutes visitors spent on the sites declined this July, versus July 2007, according to Nielsen.

Five of the top 10 online newspapers reported declines in the average time spent per person.

At the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the average time spent per person fell from 23 minutes in July 2007 to just under 10 minutes in July 2008.  Meanwhile, the average time spent per person at Boston.com declined by half — from more than 18 minutes in July 2007 to just over 9 minutes in July 2008.

Review Nielsen’s June 2008 U.S. newspaper Web traffic results.