The Hill, Breitbart See Big Web Traffic Growth

Web traffic at news sites overall has declined over the past year, but political site The Hill and conservative-leaning Breitbart bucked the trend, seeing big gains in viewers.

The Hill led with a 72 percent increase, according to digital analytics firm SimilarWeb, while Breitbart showed a strong 55 percent gain.

SimilarWeb studied 114 leading publishers, who increased their visits from 9.2 million to 15.9 million, based on mobile and desktop visits.

"U.S. audiences now spend more than a tenth of their time while online reading and sharing news stories," said SimilarWeb Digital Insights Manager Joel Zand. "However the ability to generate year-over-year growth for publishers is extremely difficult in a challenging market with constant innovation and new players."

Year-over-year growth is achieved by focusing on niche topics and becoming a vital source of news and information among those audiences, such as Breitbart does with its conservative audience, Zand said.