UKOM Data Report: July 2012

July saw the UK’s online audience fall slightly, down 158,000 people month on month. According to data just released by online measurement company UKOM, a unique audience of 42.9 million individuals went online throughout the month, with 41 million of those accessing the internet from home and work locations. June 2012 brought the biggest monthly audience so far with 43 million individuals.

Although the Olympic Games didn’t open until the end of July, the official London 2012 site saw a huge jump in interest through the month. The site, which was ranked 145^th in June, jumped up to 51^st place in July and increased its audience by 120%. 6 million individuals visited the site, helping it secure a 14% reach across the online population.

Search Engines/Portals & Communities continued to be the most visited category of sites of the top 100. They accounted for 22% of the top destinations, which included basic search pages like Google and Bing, blogging member communities (WordPress, Twitter and Tumblr) and general portals like Virgin Media, Yahoo! and AOL.

News & Information was the next group of sites that proved popular amongst the UK online public. The BBC homepage was right at the top of the list, attracting a 52% share. The entire category accounted for 19% of the top 100. Mail Online and The Guardian were some of the most popular of these sites, with 8.3 and 7 million visitors respectively.

Entertainment, which comprises of a vast array of sub sectors including catch up services, gambling and online games, made up 17%. The most popular of these include YouTube and BBC Sport with subcategories such as adult, music and games. The Top To look at the Top Sites by Category report, click here.

Brands

The top ten brands moved very little in July although both Google and Yahoo! lost nearly half a million users each. This was simply not enough of a hit to shake Google off the top spot and the search giant retained an audience of 36 million.

Facebook saw the biggest increase, up 635,000 users, resulting in the social network’s biggest audience since UKOM began reporting. In July, 28.9 million users were on the site, although this didn’t translate to a record breaking active reach. 67% on the online universe used Facebook in July compared to the 68.5% reach it achieved in August 2011.

YouTube also had a good month, with the video site remaining the fourth most popular brand, increasing its audience by 475,000 users (up 2%). Six out of the ten top brands lost users in July with the biggest MoM percentage loss belonging to Yahoo! with -2%. This level of inactivity helped the top ten remain in the same order as they were in June.

General Interest Portals

When looking at the top ten portals for the month Google and Yahoo! also didn’t fair too well, both again reporting the biggest actual losses. Naturally digital dominant Google remained in the top spot, followed by the MSN portal.

While the rivals are close in rank (MSN takes the overall 4^th spot) there is actually a difference of 10 million users between the two internet goliaths. The Microsoft gateway was down 0.9% in July with a total of 26.6 million users.

AOL Media Network bagged the biggest percentage and actual increase, with a 6.2% drive bringing the total amount of users to 8.7 million. iGoogle, the personalised version of the omnipresent company, received the biggest percentage drop in the top ten. The site, originally launched in 2005, witnessed an 11.5% fall in July, resulting in 2.6 million users.

Current Events

This subcategory of News & Information, includes general international news sites such as The Guardian, HuffingtonPost and MSN News Network. The BBC had one brand and two separate channels in the top ten current events sites. The brand came in first place with 22 million users, down 0.8% MoM. BBC News followed with a significantly less 12 million visitors.

Pulitzer Prize winning site HuffingtonPost saw the biggest jump in users, up 15% since June, resulting in a unique audience of 3.4 million. Aside from the BBC brand, The Sun was the only other site in the top ten seeing a loss.

The News International site needn’t worry too much though, it only lost 1,000 users month on month. MailOnline remained the most popular online national newspaper, with 8.3 million (+3% MoM) users. This was followed closely by its liberal nemesis; The Guardian only grew by 1.5% with a total of 7 million users.

Further breakdowns and reports can found in the Online database.