Facebook Sees Growth in Referral Traffic for Major News Sites

Facebook’s role as a source of referral traffic for news publishers appears to be on the rise again, according to new data from Similarweb. In March 2025, more than a third of the world’s largest news websites reported an increase in both their Facebook share of social referral traffic and their total social referrals compared to the previous year.

This shift follows changes Meta made to its handling of political content, which had previously led to a significant downturn in Facebook traffic for publishers. In January 2025, Meta announced a more personalized approach to political content, aiming to allow users to see more of the content they want. This move has seemingly resulted in an uptick in news-related content being shared, benefiting major publishers.

The growth in Facebook’s share of social traffic was notable on both desktop and mobile platforms, with 75% of the top 68 global news sites reporting higher referral traffic from Facebook in March. Among the winners, the UK-based Express saw a 26% increase in Facebook’s share of its social traffic, with Facebook accounting for 75% of all social referrals.

However, the impact of Facebook’s resurgence has not been uniform across all news sites. While some have seen substantial growth, others, particularly some of the biggest sites like The New York Times and CNN, continue to experience declines in overall social traffic compared to 2022. This mixed trend highlights the complexities of Meta’s algorithm changes and their varying effects on different types of content and publishers.

In the U.S., a similar pattern emerged, with Facebook gaining a larger share of social traffic, particularly for conservative-leaning sites and local news outlets. Despite some sites seeing growth, the overall landscape remains diverse, with some publishers continuing to struggle with declining social referrals.