MediaTel

Guardian.co.uk remains the UK's most popular national news website audited by ABC, despite losing one million unique browsers since December 09 when it reported an all time high of nearly 37 million.

This is the fifth month in a row Guardian.co.uk has come out on top of the competitors. For many months the website has been leading the surge in popularity, continually reporting record numbers of users. January's data shows a YoY rise of 21%.

ABCe has moved from using the term 'unique users' to 'unique browsers', "to emphasise that the unique user/browser metric is aimed at counting devices (not people)." (When looking at the per day average figure for unique browsers, Mail Online was the most popular UK newspaper website in January, with 2.16m unique browsers, while Guardian.co.uk was in second place with 1.9 million unique browsers per day on average.)

Mail Online performed well in January, up 3 million browsers. With only 80,000 users between them, Mail Online nearly capitalised on Guardian.co.uk's slight drop in popularity but the Associated website remained in second place. In the past twelve months Mail Online has proved to be the clear threat to the Guardian's online dominance, taking the top spot for three months over the summer. The Daily Mail website has been gaining a new audience with much more momentum, resulting in a YoY increase of 56%.

2010 has also been kind to Telegraph.co.uk so far, up nearly 2 millions unique browsers over January. In September 2009 Telegraph.co.uk, along with the top two competitors, reached over 30 million unique browsers for the first time. So far the top three sites have remained past this benchmark and Telegraph.co.uk continues to grow, although there has been a lack of major surges in numbers since then. Telegraph.co.uk sees a YoY rise of 25.2%.

Times Online gained 1.5 million unique browsers in January, jumping to fourth place in the process. The News International website has seen a slow and slight rise in its popularity and has remained with roughly the same audience figure for 18 months. While The Times site gained more unique browsers  in January it is actually reporting a YoY loss of 7%.

While reporting a growth in unique browsers, Sun Online actually slipped to fifth place in January, narrowly edged out by Times Online. The site has had an erratic 12 months, peaking in February 2009 with 27 million browsers and grabbing the top spot. Since then the figures have been fluctuating but remaining around the 20 million mark. January's figures see a YoY loss of 3%.

Both Mirror Group and Independent.co.uk also saw a rise in audience yet also remain in the same positions as December. Mirror Group reported 10.7 million unique browsers over January, and increase of one million. The website broke the 10 million mark in July 2009 and continues to remain there. This may seem unimpressive but the Mirror's online presence is reporting a YoY increase of 60% Independent.co.uk saw 380,000 users flocked to the site resulting in 9.3 million which means a YoY loss of 5%.

So while everybody but Guardian.co.uk saw a rise in traffic over the month of January, three of the bottom four websites have actually seen a loss when compared to the same time last year, begging the question will the increasing gap between the higher and lowers rungs ever be closed?