We scanned last week's 25,000 top Lycos user queries to see which newspapers got the most interest. The top 25 papers, from the most-searched-for to the least, are below.
We've ranked each in comparison to the overall leader, The New York Times. For instance, the 20% ranking of the Chicago Tribune means that for every 100 people who searched for the New York Times, 20 searched for the Trib.
The full list:
100% New York Times
84% USA Today
62% Washington Post
36% Toronto Sun
34% Wall Street Journal
26% Los Angeles Times
24% Boston Globe
22% Toronto Star
20% Chicago Tribune
20% Dallas Morning News
18% The Times of India
13% Houston Chronicle
13% Seattle Times
12% The Globe and Mail
11% Miami Herald
10% Denver Post
10% New York Post
9% Diario Las Americas
8% The Times of London
8% Tampa Tribune
8% Detroit Free Press
8% National Enquirer
8% Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
7% Minneapolis Star-Tribune
7% Atlanta Constitution-Journal
Canadian papers got muscle! Two Toronto papers in the top 10, plus the Globe and Mail (also based in Toronto) at #14. Are Northerners "newsier"?
The Times of India comes in at #11, pointing up once again how many Indians are online. (The Times of India was more than twice as popular as the Times of London, after all.) Or perhaps the message is that Indian expatriates remain particularly attached to their home culture. As a comparison we looked for the top Japanese and Chinese papers, including Yomiuri Shimbun and Sichuan Ribao , but none made the top 25,000 queries.
Also note the popularity of Florida newspapers, with the Miami Herald (#15) and the Tampa Tribune (#20) joined by Miami's Spanish-language newspaper, Diario Las Americas (#18).
Tabloid haters should be comforted to find that the National Enquirer barely makes the list at #22, below even the Detroit Free Press. Notable names that didn't make the top 25: the New York Daily News, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Ottawa Citizen.
For a final comparison: see the InfoPlease almanac's list of the top U.S. newspapers by circulation. They list the top 5 as:
1. Wall Street Journal
2. USA Today
3. Los Angeles Times
4. New York Times
5. Washington Post
So (not counting Canadian papers) the Web's top 5 matches the top 5 in circulation, though not in exact order. Below #5, however, things get rather lively.
Note: These searches mostly originated in North America; other countries worldwide have their own versions of Lycos. All search spellings and variations are included in each paper's total; for instance, the New York Times total includes searches for NY Times and New York Times newspaper. This list reflects actual terms entered into our search engine by Lycos users during the week ending January 1, 2000; it does not imply endorsement of these newspapers by Lycos. For all of today's news, we invite you to visit our own Lycos News home page.
