New York Times top US news site of 2007

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NYTimes.com has been ranked the leading online news site based on the number of top ranking story listings it registered on Google News US throughout 2007.

According to analysis by Newsknife , of the 3,809 sites found in its sample of nearly 2,000 major news items, NY Times.com was the Google News US top source on 168 occasions.

NYTimes.com has jumped up the list from the 2006 study where it was ranked second with 166 top story listings, just two fewer than this year's winning number.

Last year's top US source, ABC News, dropped to fifth on the 2007 list. Falling from a high of 201 top stories in 2006, to just 59 this year.

Newsknife found appearances by only 3800 sites this year compared with 4500 in 2006, which would suggest slight harmonisation of news sources.

However, this was not reflected by the 246 top news story rankings pooled between the top three sources this year as in 2006, 531 top rankings were collectively gained by the top three sources.

NYTimes.com, it seems, has therefore cemented its position as other sources fell around it.

The Times claimed a significant boost in traffic after it disposed of the Times Select paywall that prevented non-subscribers from accessing premium content on the site. It also introduced a number of new features, which developers claim have increased popularity of the site .

ABC News moved down the rankings this year, while Houston Chronicle and Los Angeles Times were debutants on the list.

Newsknife speculated that change to the top dozen sources was 'subtle and perhaps temporary'.

It makes its assessment based on non-specific, big, world news stories.

Newsknife's website claims : "We study only those categories of stories at Google News that we consider hard news: the top two stories, the three top world stories and the three top US stories."

The basis of the analysis, therefore, is limited to sources that do these stories well and frequently. If it were to look at business stories, or sport or breaking news, this would skew results in favour of certain other sites.

The study also highlighted a trend towards US-based sites as the predominant sources domestically.

Guardian Unlimited slipped out of the Top 12 after holding seventh place in 2006. Another UK source, Times Online, remained in the list, although it dropped from fifth in 2006, to eighth in the latest list.

An interesting addition to the list is the Associated Press (AP). Items from AP have only been appearing at Google News since the start of September.

Newsknife has found AP as the top news item source 11 times over the three months to date. Somewhat bizarrely, it multiplied that by four to simulate a full year (ed - but doesn't that make the sample size a bit worthless?)

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1        New York Times (168 top stories)

2        Voice of America (91)

3        Reuters (87)

4        Washington Post (79)

5        ABC News (59)

6        Houston Chronicle (58)

7        Forbes (52)

8        Times Online, UK (51)

9        Bloomberg (49)

10      CNN (47)

11=    Los Angeles Times (44)

11=    The Associated Press (44)