Top 100 sites saw mixed performance in September, with several major sectors experiencing fluctuations. Overall, most major platforms experienced month-over-month (MoM) declines, suggesting a slowdown in user engagement across a number of categories.

Some of the biggest winners last month included instructure.com, which saw a significant traffic boom of more than 110%. In addition, espn.com saw an impressive 27% uptick, and chatgpt.com (22%) also saw traffic growth.

There was much more action on the negative side last month, with sites like outbrain.com (-37.7%), accuweather.com (-21.7%), and roblox.com (-19.3%) struggling to maintain engagement. Rounding out the biggest September losers, quora.com saw a -16.8% traffic decline, and cragislist.org (-16.9%) didn’t fare much better.

Major tech and social media platforms faced some of the biggest challenges. Industry-leader youtube.com, for instance, saw a -4.2% decrease in traffic, and facebook.com (-6.4%) saw traffic fall similarly. In addition, amazon.com saw a -5.5% decline, and both linkedin.com (-8.1%) and twitter.com (-8.8%) saw more serious declines.

E-commerce sites also faced turbulence. Big players like walmart.com (-8%) experienced significant drops, despite sites like target.com (2%) posting modest gains. Traffic to apple.com managed to grow 2.7% as well, contrasting the trend with other major players.

On the news front, sites like cnn.com (-6.6%) and nytimes.com (-5.8%) experienced substantial dips, while nbcnews.com (1.9%) saw gains. Despite continued election coverage, foxnews.com (-10.9%) struggled, while sites like bbc.com (2.3%) managed to find some traction. 

Overall, September was a challenging month for a number of sectors, with declines across tech, social media, and e-commerce. Although a few standout gains were seen in education and sports, most sites will need to regroup in October.