Nielsen Data Report: July 2014

The UK’s online population fell slightly in July according to data released by online measurement company Nielsen. A total of 38.9 million users went online in the UK over the month, with 37.6 million of those having access from non-mobile devices.

The majority of users hailed from London, accounting for 19%, with people falling into the social grade B making up 30% of all those online. Looking at education, the largest group (30%) claim to have ‘some further college education’ while 18% ‘completed secondary school’.

Further breakdowns can be found using the Universe Profile report .

Top Ten

Once again Google boasted ownership of three of the top ten most popular sites in July, with the Google homepage taking first place with a massive 29 million users (a 74% share of the UK’s online universe). This represents an impressive increase of 1.1 million users over the month.

According to Nielsen, users spent an average of 2 hours and ten minutes on the site, clicking on an average 174 pages each.

Next up was the Google Search page, which attracted 23 million users which meant that 80% of those that visited the Google homepage directly searched for a term instead of immediately clicking on the various tabs.

YouTube was in fifth place and was by far the most popular video site in the UK with 16.8 million users, although there was a slight fall of over half a million users. On the plus side, average viewing went up from three and a half hours in June to four hours and seven minutes in July.

After the top two Google-owned services, social network Facebook came in at third place, with each user racking up a shocking seven hours and 51 minutes. The prevailing black hole of productivity sucked in just over half of all those online throughout the month, with a total of 19.7 million users.

BBC tumbled down one spot after banishing 1.5 million users, allowing Amazon to swoop in and take the sixth place thanks to a minute 0.2% rise.

Travel

As the summer got in to full swing, July saw the top ten travel sites buck the general downward trend with many people across the country turning their attention to the great escape. Google Maps remained the top target for users because apparently attempting to find the pub your mates are in is considered ‘travel’ as well.

In total, 8.9 million users (a 23% share of the UK’s online population in July) used Google Maps, with each user spending an average of 22 minutes on the site.

Not doing quite as well was Google Earth, the company’s insanely detailed 3D atlas, which came in at number 10. The less casual mapping site brought in a total of 1.3 million users, translating to a massive month on month increase of 36%.

TheTrainLine was the only site in the top ten to witness a loss of users, although the damage was far from significant. A drop of 14,000 users saw the ticket purchasing site slip down a rank, allowing rival National Rail jump into fifth place with an increase of 178,000 users.

The biggest actual increase out of the group belonged to user-generated travel review site, TripAdvisor, which jumped to a total of 4.7 million users thanks to a month on month increase of 576,000 unique users and jumped up 11 overall places to rank at 42^nd place.

News

Unlike the top travel sites, the most popular online newsbrands followed the overall inclination to shed some users over July, with over half of the top ten news sites witnessing a drop in activity.

The main site for the BBC Corporation remained the dominant source of news with UK users, although it did suffer a significant month on month drop of 1.5 million users. This change translated to a -9% drop resulting in the site falling just one place, from seventh overall site to the eighth most popular site in July.

Although the time spent on the BBC site fell by four minutes, it still clocked in at one hour and 44 minutes per person, on average.

Next up was the DMGT owned MailOnline which recorded a small drop, down from 6.3 million users in June to 5.9 million users in July, resulting in a 15% active reach. This -6.4% drop didn’t affect the home of the Sidebar of Shame’s overall ranking either, remaining in 29^th place for the month.

Newsquest Media Group, owners of local and regional newspapers and websites, had some good news, increasing its audience by 9% month on month. The collection of sites, which includes exchangeandmart.co.uk and heraldscotland.com, increased its monthly audience to 2.7 million users, sending it up two places in its category and 22 places over all.

The subsidiary of sites, whose parent company is the American holding firm Gannett, increased time spent by three minutes to get a total of 16 minutes per user.

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