ABCNews.com jumped up three spots in Nielsen NetRatings’ Current Events and Global News category in July, with its 16.4 million unique users for the month propelling it to fifth place from eighth place.

The site said it grew more than any other top-10 news property month-to-month, gaining 22% in unique users versus June and 21% compared with July 2008.

ABCNews.com passed FOXNews.com and The New York Times on the Nielsen NetRatings chart. The top four were Yahoo! News, CNN.com, msnbc.com and AOL News.

ABC News president David Westin said in an email to employees:

ABCNews.com had a historic month in July—a month for which all of our digital colleagues can be proud, but also a month in which all of us should feel some ownership. We moved up from No. 8 to No. 5 in the Nielsen NetRatings, just behind the portals and at the top of the non-portal news providers (ahead of some distinguished competitors such as Tribune Newspapers, New York Times, Fox News, Google and Gannett). By Nielsen measures, we had 16.4 million unique users, up 21% over comparable numbers for July 2008. This is the highest Nielsen ranking we’ve ever had.

As is often the case on the Internet, many factors contributed to our success. Outstanding news coverage (including of Michael Jackson), original applications (such as the Julia Child section), more effective integration of social networking (particularly with Facebook) and partnerships (such as a new online partnership with ESPN and our long-standing relationship with Yahoo!)—it all helped.

As with all of our programming, every victory simply prepares us to go out and compete again for the time and attention of our audiences. But we should all take a moment to enjoy what those at ABCNews.com have accomplished—and what the contributions of so many throughout all of ABC News made possible. Congratulations.