Classified ads have traditionally accounted for some 40 percent of newspaper profits. Despite the effort of newspapers to establish an online presence, the fastest-growing online destinations for online advertising are free-standing websites like Craigslist.org and Trader Publishing. That’s great news for Trader, which is based in Norfolk, but bad news for businesses that build their audiences by gathering news.
According to comScore Media Metrix, online advertising traffic increased 47 percent in the past year to 37.4 million Internet users. Craigslist dominated with with 13.4 million users. But Trader Publishing came in second with 6.9 million. Autotrader.com, cars.com and other non-newspapers rounded out the Top 10 list.