Sun Becomes UK’s Online No.1

The Sun online has become the most popular national newspaper website in the UK after attracting more than 27 million unique users last month.

Year-on-year comparisons show thesun.co.uk increased traffic by 118.2%, a leap which saw the News International title move from fifth to first in the order of most visited online newspapers.

The release of ABCe monthly data shows that guardian.co.uk fell from first to third, Telegraph.co.uk remained in second and Times Online and dailymail.co.uk are fourth and fifth respectively.



Speaking to Press Gazette, The Sun’s online editor attributed the site’s growth to a number of factors.

Pete Picton said: “It’s a combination of things - great stories, great content, increased promotional activity and increased site optimization.”

“If you’ve got great content, it’s being linked to by a lot more places than it was,” he added, in reference to the site’s increase in referrals from social media sites like Digg.

Picton also pointed out that the user-generated content zone MySun and the Sun Woman section of the site saw record traffic last month.



Several high-profile stories also helped thesun.co.uk to break web traffic records, including the exclusive about an alleged baby-faced dad and the ‘bong’ photo of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps.

Read more about this story on guardian.co.uk.

[Graph from Press Gazette]