The website of Saudi Arabia's leading daily newspaper Okaz has been placed among the top three most visited online platforms with Arabic content in the Middle East and Africa region in 2021, according to the business magazine Forbes. Forbes Middle East, using Narratiive's platform that provides market intelligence digital data for publishers and digital providers, listed the top ten websites in the MENA region in terms of unique visitors. Unsurprisingly, news websites and aggregators had the highest number of entries, making up over half of the list with the highest unique visitors. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have two entries each. Okaz.com.sa with 131.2 million unique browsers came third in the ranking, which is based on data available for the calendar year 2021. Launched in 1960, Okaz is a Saudi-based daily newspaper issued by OKAZ Organization for Press and Publication and printed in Jeddah and Riyadh simultaneously. Okaz has two sister publications, Saudi Gazette and Al-Nadi. Okaz's website provides the latest updates and news in the Kingdom, the Arab world, as well as globally, and an expanded range of lifestyle, cultural, social, and economic articles, videos, and podcasts. The platform has 2 million followers on Twitter and around 26.9 million views on their YouTube channel, as of January 26, 2022. Jameel Altheyabi, Editor-in-Chief of Okaz and general supervisor of Saudi Gazette, said the newspaper continues to keep pace with the rapid progress experienced by the media industry around the world. Based on a long history and solid professional principles, it occupies a leading position among readers in the Middle East with human capital of qualified professional cadres, who adhere to the triplet of sustainable success, credibility and reliability, he said. Altheyabi added that Okaz plans for the future with an advanced work mechanism and periodic review, as well as the full support and backing of the Chairman of the Board of Directors Sheikh Abdullah Saleh Kamel, members of the board, and colleagues in the editorial and management departments. Forbes Middle East Editor-in-Chief Khuloud Al-Omian congratulated Okaz on the achievement. She praised the role played by Okaz in enriching the Arabic content online in Saudi Arabia and the MENA region. Two websites catering solely to women made it to the top 10. In the wake of the pandemic, WebTeb, a health and wellness website, took the No. 2 spot. Based in Dubai, UAE, WebTeb is a major Arabic medical platform that produces and publishes trusted health, nutrition, and wellness information. It offers a range of digital health services allowing Arabic speakers direct access for interaction with health experts, doctors, hospitals, and insurance companies. The platform claims to source content from experts in the field and by partnering with Harvard Medical school, Mayo Clinic, WHO, and NHS. Mawdoo3.com, the website with the most unique visitors, hails from Jordan, which also has two entries. The region's most populous country Egypt surprisingly has only two entries. Mawdoo3 is a leading Arabic content platform, commonly referred to as the Arabic digital encyclopedia, serving a wide range of information on topics from social, education, entertainment, self-help, and more. The Jordan-based website was founded in 2010 by entrepreneurs Mohammad Jaber and current CEO Rami Al-Qawasmi. The fourth spot was occupied by Kooora.com, owned by Khalid Aldoseri, who initially established the website in 2002 in Bahrain to solely cover the results of soccer matches. The operations were moved to Dubai, UAE in 2012, and later expanded to include Beirut and Cairo. Kooora covers 40 different sports, soccer making up 80% of its content, while tennis constitutes 10%. Sayidaty, which came fifth, is one of the leading Arab women and family magazines in the region. It was founded as a weekly social and women's magazine covering fashion, beauty, health and lifestyle and technology among other categories. The website is a place where women from all fields such as business-women, artists, designers, athletes, IT professionals, can get information about the latest trends and thoughts. Today, Sayidaty.net is among the first regional magazines to go live on a daily TV show. The magazine's YouTube channel has more than 633,000 subscribers with more than 164 million views and 4 million followers on Instagram as of January 2022. Sayidaty.net is followed by sotor.com, Al-Masry Al-Youm and Al-Bayan newspaper in the UAE. sotor.com is a comprehensive Arabic website aiming to produce and offer Arabic content on a vast amount of topics including medical, literary, religious, educational, sports, historical, psychological, narrative, linguistic, touristic, financial, technological, scientific, cosmetic and others. Based in Jordan, Sotor.com holds itself responsible to enrich credible Arabic content on the internet, as currently Arabic online content doesn't exceed 3% of the world's languages. Al-Masry Al-Youm is an independent Egyptian media organization. The organization issues Al-Masry Al-Youm daily newspaper, Egypt's leading Arabic-language independent daily. Established in 1980, Al Bayan Newspaper is one of the leading Arab and Gulf newspapers monitoring the events and news interests through a network of correspondents and editors covering daily news in the UAE and the region. Besides Okaz, sabq.org is the only digital Saudi platform to find a place on the Forbes list. Sabq.org is a Saudi newspaper founded in 2007 by Ali Al Hazmi. Its presence in digital media through its website and mobile app, providing the most prominent news and press coverage around the clock. As its name suggests, the electronic magazine's goal is to be a pioneer in credibly conveying the occurrences. supermama.me, with headquarters in Jordan and Egypt, is the last on the top 10 list. Supermama.me was founded in 2010, and later acquired by Mawdoo3 in 2019. The website helps mothers with information covering all dimensions of their lives written by researchers, specialists, and other mothers. Additionally, it also offers tools to help mothers organize tasks and manage time effectively. It has been developed to be a user-friendly and easy-to-navigate platform. Supermama also allows each mother to pass on her valuable experiences through a community of mothers. — SG
