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October 2025 was a record-breaker for Greater Long Island, which drew more than 900,000 readers and logged over 1.1 million pageviews — its biggest month since launching a decade ago.
To put that in perspective, the site drew roughly 40 percent more readers than the entire population of Vermont (about 650,000) — a scale rarely reached, if ever, by a regional community news outlet that’s independently owned.
“We built this from scratch,” said Mike White, GLI’s publisher. “No venture capitalists, not even grant money. It’s all been built on community trust and consistency.
“This record month feels like validation for everything we’ve been doing since day one.”
Defying media trends
Across the industry, referral traffic from Facebook and Google continues to shrink — along with publisher’s pageviews.
Greater Long Island has moved in the opposite direction while doubling down on storytelling, deep local relevance and ramping up direct distribution through the Greater Long Island iPhone app and newsletter.
That’s not to say the news outlet’s social media following is going anywhere but up. Reels and posts from the Greater Long Island Instagram feed alone reached 6.2 million views in October.
The main Greater Long Island Facebook feed racked up over 15 million views in the month.
“We stopped chasing the algorithm a long time ago,” said Nicholas Esposito, GLI’s editorial director, who also oversees the company’s social media efforts. “Our focus is on being essential, and we do this by applying the same journalist fundamentals to social media as we do the website.
“That’s how you engage an audience and build a consistent brand.”
A decade of organic growth
Launched in 2015 by a single writer with the idea of delivering big-city reporting to a local audience, Greater Long Island has grown into one of the most-read regional news websites in the country.
To the uninitiated, GLI stories span breaking news, professional sports, small-business profiles, community features and sponsored spotlights — all rooted in the same conversational, community-first tone that defined its early days.
“We measure success in relationships,” White said. “Every new advertiser who stays, every reader who shares a story, every person who sees their name on the site — that’s what this is about.”
The outlet is on track to top 10 million total pageviews in 2025 alone, which would also mark a first for GLI.
We should ‘all be proud’
As consolidation reshapes local media, Greater Long Island’s record month offers a different blueprint: slow growth, steady coverage, and relentless attention to local detail.
All that, plus a dedicated audience, a team of talented journalists, and steadfast business supporters who fuel continued re-investment in the company.
“As a Long Islander first, I think we should all be proud that our Island is home to what I truly believe is the highest-trafficked, for-profit, independently owned, digital-only news organization in the United States,” White said. “We built this together.”
October highlights:
- Visitors: 909,237
- Unique visitors: 824,476
- Pageviews: 1,102,498
Follow along
Top: Long Island Fall Festival (Huntington) file photo by Adrienne Catanese/GLI
