Guardian soaring in the ABCe's

Yesterday's ABCe's saw the Guardian retain its place as the most viewed online newspaper site.

Over 35 million clicks in November,a 12.9 per cent increase on October’s 31.7m unique users ahead of Mail Online, which increased by 2.66 per cent to 31.3m users and . Telegraph.co.uk was third with 30.8m visitors, also up 2.66% on October.

The site was also top when it came to overseas traffic with with 20.4m non-UK visitors, followed by Mail Online (19.3m), Times Online (13.4m) and the Sun (11.3m).

Emily Bell, director of digital content at Guardian News and Media said that

"We are thrilled with the November figures. October was a strong month for us, but the fact that the number of monthly unique users has risen by 13% in just a few weeks indicates that our online audiences are increasingly engaging with our content,"

adding

"Our world news and environment sections drove the most traffic to guardian.co.uk in November, with several stories on climate change – in particular the story about the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit – resonating with audiences around the globe."

Guardian holds onto its online lead

The latest ABCE's are out and Guardian.co.uk is still out in front when it comes to unique users of its site.

31.7m to be exact in October,a fall of around 4 per cent and just slightly in front of the Mail no doubt helped by that Jan Moir article.

Large increases in the month for the Times up nearly 13 per cent to 20.87m and the Independent over 10 per cent at 9.7m.

The Jade factor hits Google

On the back of yesterday's news that the Sun has been propelled into No 1 Spot in the Abce's on the back of the public being more interested in celebratory comes more disappointing news for quality journalism.

A quarter of all Google searches sending traffic to Google news is related to celebs.

That is according to a survey by Hit Wise

The report tracked over 260,000 search terms that sent traffic to the site in the 12 weeks leading up to 21 March 2009 and found the most searched for term was 'Jade Goody' which accounted for 2.6% of Google News UK traffic in that period, more than all branded terms combined.

reports NewMediage

Preston is correct but the web needs to find an economic model

Peter Preston maintains in this morning's Observer that despite all the bad news coming out of the newspaper industry we should be looking at the figures for website hits.

Yet look at the latest ABC-sanctified unique user totals for Fleet Street websites. The Guardian up to almost 26 million, a 41 per cent rise in a year, and breaking 10 million UK users for the first time; the Telegraph on 23.3 million, up 109 per cent; the Mail at 21.2 million, up 57 per cent; the Times on 20.5 million, up 65 per cent; even the Independent, at 8.4 million, up 93 per cent.

The figures are good,they show people engaged with the news but the problem is that the web on its own will not bring economic salvation beacause as yet the business model doesn't work

Sour grapes over the Scotsman's web figures perhaps?

A little snippet courtesy of Roy Greenslade who notes some sour grapes? from the former Editor of the Scotsman's website who notes that sinec Johnson Press revamped the site hits have fallen dramatically.

I also knew that traffic would tank. I warned Tim Bowlder, the JP chief executive, of this face to face saying the JP redesign would lose “millions of page views and hundreds of thousands of users”. My warning was ignored and a JP apparatchik later explained that I had not understood how good their plans were.
Well, we can finally see how good their plans were. Audited traffic figures for scotsman.com have finally escaped into the light of day. According to ABCe, the site I edited for seven years now gets about 2 million unique users a month.
That’s about half of the traffic it received in 2007. That’s the lowest audited traffic scotsman.com has had since January 2004.

Mirror makes its debut on the ABCe's

The latest ABCe's are out and the Mirror group who have entered the contest for the first time have come out with a strong showing.

Across the papers four titles,the group had 4.4m unique hits in March,up 93% on obviously unaudited figures of a year ago.

The Mirror has put some investment into its sites but one biog complaint is the lack of real time.It is very often the last of the main newspaper websites to update in the morning

Maybe this is going to change

Press Gazette reports that

In statements released by the parent company Trinity Mirror this week, Mirror Group Digital head Paul Hood stressed that the digital strategy of the national newspaper division would focus on growing its domestic audience

For the other sites,the Telegraph saw a large increase in its online readership whilst the Mail continues to close the gap on the Guardian.

ABCE's show that there is an alternate market for online news

Yesterday's ABCe's contained some suprises perhaps none more so that the Mail's website rising up the hits chart and getting close to the Guardian site.

If this illustrates anything it is something that a lot of rush to new media forgets.It is not just the young that should be embraced.The older generation and obviously readers of the Mail ,and a lesser extent the Telegraph,do use the net,they have a lot of spending power and a lot more time on their hands than many of the younger generation.

The Mail saw its unique user numbers up by a staggering 164% year on year and 31% up on the previous month.

Yes we can all point to the death of Heath Ledger which sent people to the Sun's website but the Mail's success story shows that there is a market for a different sort of content.

Mail leads the way in online

So the Daily Mail confirms that besides being one of the most popular print papers,it is up there with the best when it comes to online readers as well.

Yesterday's ABC'E's showed the papers site getting nearly 12 million unique users during July putting it ahead of sites such as the Sun,Times online and the Telegraph.

I wander whether this is further confirmation of the trend for more older users of the web as surveys have suggested and perhaps this trend can give food for thought for future direction of web content.

ABC e's show Guardian in poll position

Not suprisingly Guardian Media is heavily featuring the news that the Guardian had over 15 million hits on its website almost twicw the amount of its nearest rival Times online during March.

It is also very happy to confirm that contary to the Telegraph's claims,that publication is lagging well behind that of the Guardian.A banner on the front of the print adition referring to

"An End to Web Propoganda now the first official audited figures"

However beware,only four newspapers have actually declared their figures in March,the Sun being the fourth member and neither the Indy,the Mirror,Express or the Star confirm that figures are audited and the Mail and the Ft simply don't release these figures.