ABCe May 2009: Guardian stays on top

Guardian.co.uk was the most popular website of the audited national daily newspapers in May 2009, with Telegraph.co.uk enjoying a boost in unique users, according to the latest ABCe data.

The Guardian saw its unique user figure fall slightly month on month although it was up by around 9 million year on year, to 27.2 million. In second place was Telegraph.co.uk with more than 25.2 million unique users following a month on month increase of 5.8%. The site was helped by the continuing revelations over MP’s expense claims.

It was just ahead of the Mail Online which enjoyed an increase of 6.4% month on month to 24.6 million unique users. News International title the Sun saw an 11.57% increase in unique users, giving it a total of 22.9 million in May.

The Times website had a total of 20.4 million unique users, according to the ABCe, following a fall of 5.46% month on month. It fell into fifth place after being overtaken by the Sun.

A decline of 8.2% on April saw the Independent’s unique user figure drop to 9.6 million in May, while Mirror Group saw a slight increase month on month, of 1.1% to 4.5 million.

*ABCe defines Unique User Browser 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.