• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, July 21, 2016

Publishers looking to increase traffic from search engines, specifically Google, should be very happy. SimilarWeb released numbers related to the top 20 media sites that saw an increase in site visits from organic search traffic in June. For some it looks pretty darn good.

The data leapfrogs off a study released earlier this month from SimilarWeb that reveals how Facebook threatens to take news site traffic from publisher sites, while Google provides an increase of organic search traffic to publisher sites.

The suntimes.com saw the highest increase in organic search traffic between May and June, with an increase of 307% for organic search. Rounding out the top five, lifedaily.com followed with 265%; miamiherald.com, 242%; nationalinterest.org; 234%; and orlandosentinel.com with 215%.

If the data is broken down into categories such as Media and News or Finance, it tells a different story. Finance led all categories with 16% growth, the News and Media category followed with 14%, and games rose 13%.

Some categories experienced a drop in their organic search traffic, with Career and Education sites seeing a 25% decrease in organic search between May and June 2016. The How to/Ask an expert category dropped off 20%, and Books and Literature fell 13% in organic search traffic on a month-to-month basis.

Apparently it's all in the algorithms. Roy Hinkis, head of SEO and digital marketing evangelist at SimilarWeb, attributes the shift partly to the release of Google's quality "Phantom" update in June, although Google has not confirmed.

As for the growth rate in June 2016, compared with May 2016, for the remaining 15 domain names: nypost.com, 156%; pjmedia.com, 153%; upi.com, 146%; ibtimes,co,uk, 136%; freep.com, 126%; observer.com, 125%; nesn.com, 114%; esquire.com, 107%; thinkprogress.org, 105%; nbcsports.com, 104%; theweek.com, 97%; vox.com, 96%; cbssports.com, 72%; dallasnews.com, 70%; and businessinsider.com, 66%.