September 19, 2013updated 23 Aug 2022 7:20pm

Mirror is biggest winner from Sun paywall move as News UK title withdraws from ABC website auditing

The Mirror website has been the biggest winner following the launch of The Sun's paywall, with web traffic up 19.6 per cent month on month to a record high of 34.4m unique browsers in August.

This compares with 29.8m unique browsers in July, the last month before The Sun went behind a paywall.

The Mirror was also by far the fastest growing national newspaper website, more than doubling its total daily and monthly traffic totals year on year.

Meanwhile The Sun, which attracted 30.8m unique browsers in July, has withdrawn from online auditing by ABC meaning no official web traffic figures are available post paywall.

Mail Online confirmed its place as the UK's most popular newspapper website by attracting 138m unique browsers in August, according to ABC, a new record for the site.

The Telegraph, which went behind a metered paywall in April limiting free access to 20 articles a month, is still seeing year on year growth – up 12 per cent year on year to 60.4m global unique browsers across the month.

Mirror Online publisher Steve Anglesey said: "These figures underline why this is such an exciting time to be at the Mirror.

"New investment means we have already substantially raised our daily number of stories published with more staff joining all the time. We are becoming a real player in the areas we have targeted to build a substantial loyal and engaged audience online – big tabloid exclusives, improved photo sets, informative and entertaining live

blog event coverage, timely and controversial opinion.

"Our new design for mobile and small tablet devices looks superb and has also helped push our huge year-on-year growth, together with integration between traditional print and digital desks, which is improving every day."

Here is the full UK national newspaper website traffic breakdown for August (Source ABC)

Mail Online

9,004,285 daily browsers, up 30.2 per cent year on year

137,690,816 monthly browsers, up 37.2 per cent year on year

Guardian.com

4,519,849 daily browsers, up 18.4 per cent year on year

83,519,898 monthly browsers, N/A

Telegraph.co.uk

3,108,353 daily browsers, up 13 per cent year on year

60,351,846 monthly browsers, up 11.9 per cent year on year

Mirror Group Digital

1,731,520 daily browsers, up 106.3 per cent year on year

34,416,732 monthly browsers, up 103.1 per cent year on year

The Independent

1,295,170 daily browsers, up up 42.6 per cent year on year

27,628,344 monthly browsers, up 42.8 per cent year on year

The Metro

552,692 daily browsers, up 47.8 per cent year on year

12,702,276 monthly browsers, up 46.6 per cent year on year

Standard.co.uk

202,085 daily browsers, up 11.1 per cent year on year

4,525,932 monthly browsers, up 16.6 per cent year on year

Topics in this article : The Mirror , The Sun

Email pged@pressgazette.co.uk to point out mistakes, provide story tips or send in a letter for publication on our "Letters Page" blog

Dominic Ponsford

@DomPonsford

Dominic Ponsford is the editor in chief of Press Gazette and has more than 20 years experience in journalism. Former Paul Foot Awards finalist and PPA editor of the year nominee 2022.