ABCe June 2009: Mail Online races ahead of rivals
Mail Online has raced ahead of its rivals to become the most popular national newspaper website over the month of June.
According to data just released by ABCe, the Associated News site attracted nearly 5 million extra unique users from May. This has pushed Mail Online to the top spot for the first time in 13 months, resulting in a YOY increase of 83.4%.
Almost every other ABCe audited national newspaper website reported an increase over July, with Guardian.co.uk slipping to second place but showing an increase of just under 2 million users and a YOY increase of 41%. Guardian.co.uk, once a certain to be the most popular site, has been having a difficult time of late. It has only come out on top three months of the year so far.
Telegraph.co.uk slipped to third place while simultaneously increasing its traffic by nearly two million people. In March this year the website knocked Sun Online off the top spot, although its victory was short lived. June saw 27 million users visit the website, a YOY increase of 37.9%.
Sun Online took the top spot in February with an impressive 27 million users. Since then it has slipped to fourth place but has managed to maintain the bulk of its record audience. The News International site has gained over 2 million new users in the month and is reporting an increase of 61% YOY.
Staying in fifth place, Times Online increased its audience by 30% over 12 months.
In the lower depths of the list remain the Mirror Group and Independent.co.uk. In June, however, they have swapped places. Mirror Group reported an increase of 700,000 users, moving it up to sixth place. Independent.co.uk is the only ABCe audited site in June to report a drop traffic. Losing 200,000 users was enough to send the website to the bottom of the table with 9.3 million unique users.
*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.