Newspaper ABCes: Top three sites report record March traffic

The top three national newspaper websites all reported record average daily browser figures in March, swelled by overseas visitors and coverage of key news events such as the Japanese earthquake, the civil war in Libya and the Royal Wedding.

ABCes: MailOnline, Telegraph and guardian.co.uk all report strong growth
ABCes: MailOnline, Telegraph and guardian.co.uk all report strong growth

MailOnline continues to reign supreme among national newspaper websites, recovering from its dip the previous month by luring more overseas and UK visitors.

However, its closest rivals, Guardian.co.uk and Telegraph.co.uk, also had strong months.

The MailOnline website reported a record 3,661,666 daily average browsers in March, up 16.5% on the previous month, according to the latest data from ABCe.

On a monthly measurement, MailOnline, which includes content from the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, attracted 66 million visitors, compared to 50.9 million in February.

The bulk of these increased monthly visitors to MailOnline came from overseas.

Just over 21 million came from the UK, up from 19.2 million the previous month. Over 44 million came from overseas in March.

Likewise, Guardian.co.uk had a strong month, up 10.7% from February to 2,722,490 daily average browsers. On a monthly measurement, Guardian.co.uk recorded 49.2 million visitors.

UK visitor numbers rose from 15.8 million to 18.8 million. Overseas visitors were 30.8 million in March.

A Guardian News & Media (GNM) spokesperson, said: "The Guardian's online coverage of breaking news in March, such as the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, resulted in both new and repeated browsers to guardian.co.uk, and led to an extremely high number of video plays."

, in a bid to cater for their American readerships.

Telegraph.co.uk remains in third place, reporting 1,995,655 daily average browsers, up 7.8% on February. It reported 40.1 million monthly users, up 22.2%.

Today's figures follow March data from online traffic measurement company Comscore showing MailOnline is now the second largest English-speaking newspaper website in the world after the New York Times.


ABCe Results March 2011
  March Month / month Year / year March
Online title Global Daily Ave Daily % change Daily % change Global monthly total
MailOnline  3,661,666 16.50 62.98 65,997,230
guardian.co.uk  2,722,490 10.67 46.98 49,176,766
Telegraph  1,995,655 7.78 28.16 40,139,803
The Independent  605,328 -2.56 35.85 13,358,598
Mirror Group Digital  537,355 -2.00 14.89 11,418,514

Market Reports

Get unprecedented new-business intelligence with access to ±±¾©Èü³µpk10’s new Market Reports.

Find out more

Enjoying ±±¾©Èü³µpk10’s content?

 Get unlimited access to ±±¾©Èü³µpk10’s premium content for your whole company with a corporate licence.

Upgrade access

Looking for a new job?

Get the latest creative jobs in advertising, media, marketing and digital delivered directly to your inbox each day.

Create an alert now

Partner content