The Australian Financial Review won the Digital News Site of the year award for a National Newspaper at major industry awards on Wednesday.

The award celebrates the newspaper's website AFR.com which has seen a 213 per cent increase in digital subscriptions since July 2015.

Judges at the Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers Association said AFR.com had shown a massive improvement in the last year and now presented a high quality end-user experience.

"The AFR has a comprehensive cross-platform digital strategy, 24 hours a day," the judges said. "This is connecting strongly with the next generation of business leaders."

Commenting Financial Review editor in chief Michael Stutchbury said the award was a terrific achievement and reflected the paper's commitment to online news.

"We have a great paper and we're really proud of the way we present it online."

Mr Stutchbury praised the work of the Financial Review's Head of Engagement Amy-Wilson Chapman who drove website development for the past year before recently moving to Washington to run a major journalism website.

"Amy has a great sense of what makes a website work. She developed the strategy and made sure reporters and editors knew how to make AFR.com work so strongly."

Fairfax won 16 awards at the Panpa event.

Group Editor, Digital for Australian Community Media, Emily Sweet, won the Hegarty award for outstanding young news executive.
 
The Newcastle Herald won Daily Newspaper of the Year in the regional category – the fifth year in a row; and Queensland Country Life won Non-Daily Newspaper of the Year in the regional category.
 
Fairfax online services performed strongly. In addition to The Australian Financial Review, the Newcastle Herald and The Maitland Mercury won news website awards in regional and community categories.