With Election Day practically upon us, news websites are gearing up for what will undoubtedly be a high-traffic day. But the online news industry's most heavily trafficked day may come as a surprise.

While Americans will turn to both the web and television for election coverage, the traffic surge for internet news outlets comes the day after the race is decided, according to The New York Times.

Yahoo News, one of the most highly trafficked news websites, will simulcast video coverage from ABC News Now on election night, but the site is expecting a Wednesday traffic surge. In 2004, Yahoo had 80 million page views on Election Day, and that number jumped to 142 million the next day. Yahoo expects to double or possibly triple those numbers for this year's election.

Yahoo News already recorded the highest traffic day in its 13-year history on Aug. 29 of this year, the day after Barack Obama's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention.

"Prime time on the internet is first thing in the morning," said Liz Lufkin, senior director for front page content at Yahoo News.

Yahoo was the most popular news site in September, according to comScore, and was ranked second behind MSNBC.com by Nielsen.

MSNBC.com has been aided in part by its close association to NBC and its family of television news outlets. On Oct. 19, the website got a huge boost when it immediately posted a video of Colin Powell endorsing Obama on "Meet the Press," according to the Times.