The term online publishing solution encompasses a vast list of products. An online publishing solution can offer the means to present self-published products for individuals or it can more commonly provide portals and products for media and other organizations to take their messages on the Web.

Newspapers use an online publishing solution to display their news content, their sports content, their run of paper (ROP) advertising and their classified advertising. Commonly, one online publishing solution is used for the news and ROP content while another powers the classifieds.

These publications have also begun to incorporate directories and other local search functions into their Internet products and these are often powered by yet another online publishing solution. One vendor might offer an e-commerce online publishing solution so that products advertised by the newspaper sites can be bought and paid for on the Web, while another online publishing solution provides the software to let sellers and buyers connect by way of live chat and click to call features.

One of the best known online media solution vendors for newspapers offers not only a product that can power news pages on the Web, but also classified advertising front end tasks, and circulation subscription functions such as order taking and daily distribution.

Another focuses on delivering revenue-producing programs, providing searchable and parsable classified line and display advertising, local search directories, and the increasingly more common marketplace and aggregated results that combine news, retail, classified, blogs, and even user ID's in one search result.