The website had 130 staff members, and the original columnists included Ofer Shelah and Gadi Taub.

Since 2008, Ynet is Israel's most popular internet portal, as measured by Google Trends.

According to Gadi Taub of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the launch of Ynetnews was a major event in English-language media in Israel.

The founding editor of Ynetnews, Alan Abbey planned to focus on American Jews as an audience.

[10] Abbey left in the summer of 2005 to serve as Internet Director for Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.