Sun Website Gets 10 Million Unique Users
The website of popular national newspaper, the Sun, has broken the 10 million unique user (as defined by ABCe) barrier , with a record figure for August.
Whilst the print incarnation saw its circulation fall to under 3.2 million in August (see ABC National Newspaper Round-Up: August 2007), the ABCe said the site attracted almost 10.6 million unique users* last month, up more than 36% year on year.
The site also records more page impressions than any other site in its sector, with each user accessing an average of 23 pages every month – double that of its rivals. Sun Online recorded just short of 239 million page impressions during August.
The holiday month of August is traditionally a quiet month for news sites.
Both the Guardian‘s website network, Guardian Unlimited, and the Daily Mail & General Trust’s online operation recorded a slight fall from the previous month.
Guardian Unlimited still has more unique users than any other UK newspaper site, recording over 15.8 million users during August. The figure represents a 26.35% year on year increase, despite a fall of 1.5% from the previous month. The site recorded more than 155 million page impressions in August.
The Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and the Mail Online’s fantasy football site attracted a combined total of over 11.5 million unique users for August, a fall of 2.4% from the group’s debut in July. Page impressions reached more than 91.3 million.
Based on ABCe figures, which are audited on a standardised system agreed by both publishers and advertising agencies, the Mail Online network is now the second most popular UK newspaper site in terms of unique users, with Sun Online third, Times Online fourth and Telegraph.co.uk fifth.
Telegraph.co.uk had a strong month with an 8.6% increase in traffic from July to August, reaching over 9.7 million unique users. The site’s traffic has increased more than 64% from August 2006, while page impressions have risen to more than 98.6 million.
Times Online saw a slight month on month fall of just under 3% to over 9.7 million unique users, a 15% rise from August 2006. The site recorded over 76.6 million page impressions last month.
Three of the five sites also publish data on UK versus international usership.
Sun Online has just under 5 million UK-based users, equivalent to 45% of its online audience. Times Online has just under 4 million, or 37%, and the Mail Online has just under 3 million, or 25% of its users.
*ABCe defines unique users on each of their certificates as “The total number of unique combinations of a valid identifier, Sites may use (i)IP+UserAgent, (ii) Cookie and/or (iii) Registration ID.” Note that where users are allocated IP addresses dynamically (for example by dial-up Internet Service Providers), this definition may overstate or understate the real number of individual users concerned.
ABC Electronic: 01442 870 800 www.abce.org.uk