Biz news sites reported big gains in March

The top business news sites saw dramatic increases in unique visitors in March as the markets and the economy began to feel the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, according to comScore data obtained by Talking Biz News.

CNBC.com claimed the top spot with 114.7 million users, nearly double the 60 million users it had in February. The increase was 91.2 percent.

Business Insider’s data, which includes BusinessInsider.com and its non-business site Insider.com, saw a 53.5 percent increase to 117.6 million unique visitors, up from 76.6 million in February.

Forbes.com reported a 53.9 percent increase in unique visitors for March, rising to 106.9 million from 69.5 million in February.

The Wall Street Journal’s website climbed into the top 50 websites with 80.3 million unique visitors in March. It was not in the top 50 in February.

Yahoo Finance has typically been the No. 1 business news site, but we were unable to obtain breakout numbers. Its unique visitors are typically included in Yahoo.com, which reported 192.6 million unique visitors in March and was the No. 1 news site for the month, according to comScore.

Including its Microsoft partnership, Yahoo Finance had 117.9 million unique visitors.

Yahoo Finance had 4.25 billion global page views in March, an 89 percent increase month over month. That heightened level of engagement translated on the business side; the Yahoo Finance Premium subscription product saw an increase of 173 percent in March signups.