Nielsen Data Report: August 2014

According to August’s data a whopping 61% of those online were over the age of 35, translating to 23.9 million users. Naturally, the smallest age group fell into the youngest age bracket, with the 2-17 year olds accounting for less than 10% of those online during the month.

Further breakdowns can be found using the Universe Profile report.

Top 200 site by category

Entertainment was once again the most popular category in the top 200 sites, with YouTube leading the pack with 16.5 million viewers. 21% of the top 200 sites were categorised as Entertainment, ranging from subcategories such as ‘Videos/Movies’ (YouTube, BBC iPlayer), ‘Adult Sites’ and ‘Gambling/Sweepstakes’ (The National Lottery, paddypower.com).

Not surprisingly News & Information followed, accounting for 12.5% of the most popular sites. This category includes everything from the traditional national newspaper brands (MailOnline, Associated Newspapers Network) to new digital entities (Huffington Post) to the extremely dubious (Yahoo Answers).

Education & Careers only accounted for 0.5% with Indeed, the job search aggregator, the solo representative with 2.4 million visitors helping it rank at 109th place.

Top Commerce Sites

There was only a slight disruption to the top ten commerce sites in August, with just three properties seeing insignificant dips in popularity.

Dominant retailing giant Amazon remained at the top, a whole 2 million users ahead of its nearest rival. Each of the 16 million UK users (a 41% reach) that visited the site over the month spent an average of 48 minutes on the site, up three minutes from July.

eBay was hit the hardest of the most popular sites but the loss only translated to a month on month fall of -2.6%. The original ‘breakthrough’ digital shopping experience lost 377,000 users but held on to an impressive 14 million.

The list even included some physical, real-life stores as well with half of the top ten brands already a part of users’ non-digital lives. The most popular online highstreet supermarket in August was Tesco, once again claiming the 24th overall place. 7.2 million users – up from 6.7 million in July – visited the multinational grocery site, resulting in an 18% reach.

ASDA‘s online experience was the second most popular supermarket, boasting a 9% increase over the month, with a total of 4.2 million UK users visiting the site.

Purveyors of posh nosh, Marks & Spencer, celebrated the biggest increase in the top ten, with the online retailer witnessing a jump of half a million users in August. This resulted in a total audience of 3.4 million individuals, 9% of all those online in the UK.

This spike in traffic also helped moved the website of the British store up three overall places to 73rd but remained the seventh most popular commerce site.

John Lewis was right behind its high-end rival, in 92^nd place with 2.7 million users. The luxury retailer was also behind Marks & Spencer in terms of a month on month increase, with a 14% rise (337,000 users) over the month.

Despite Sainsbury’s receiving a smaller percentage boost than Groupon, the online home of the supermarket chain pushed passed the coupon site into ninth place with 2.4 million users.

Top News Sites

The top ten news sites did a bit better, with only one of the most popular sources for online updates suffering a fall in traffic. ITV News fell by just -144,000 users (-6.2%) but time per person remained static at a little over five minutes per person.

The BBC homepage remained the number one destination for news, with 15.9 million viewers (that’s a 41% reach of all UK users in August) and remaining in eighth overall place for the second month in a row. 38% of those who visited the site throughout the month were aged 50 and over.

In second place was MailOnline, a whole 9.7 million users behind the BBC landing page, and claiming 29th overall place. The seemingly irresistible mix of tabloid gossip and carefully orchestrated outrage claimed 6.2 million souls during the month, translating to a 16% reach.

Liberal rival, the Guardian, was up next, securing third place with a 14% month on month increase. While MailOnline held on to each visitor for an average of 43 minutes, people who were on the Guardian‘s site spent on average a whopping one hour and 33 minutes per person over the month. In total, the Guardian was visited by 5.5 million users.

The Independent, the British news site owned by a Russian oligarch, did particularly well in August with an impressive jump of 33% during the month. This resulted in a total of 3.1 million people visiting the site from the UK, helping it move from July’s 102nd place to 78th overall.

Further breakdowns and reports can found in MediaTel’s Online database.