News.com.au regains top spot as most read website, Mail Online now in eighth position
News Corp Australia’s News.com.au has regained its position at Australia’s most read news website, while new online challenger the Mail Online continues to climb the rankings.
According to the Nielsen Online Ratings, news.com.au topped the rankings in January with an audience of 2.767m closely followed by Fairfax’s smh.com.au on 2.751m and Mi9’s NineMSN on 2.454m, while its new joint venture partner the Mail Online rose up the rankings to eighth position in January.
News.com.au has had a tumultuous couple of months with the highly-read news website losing its editor Luke McIlveen and a number of key staff to the Mail Online. In the November and December surveys News.com.au came second and third respectively.
General manager of News.com.au Julian Delany said in a statement: “What a great way to start the year. We were consistently the number one news site in 2013 and to regain the top spot is a testament to the exceptional team we have here at News.com.au, they know and understand that our consumers want current and succinct news that helps them get to the facts faster.”
Is news.com.au (with no paywall) taking readership away from the Herald Sun’s and Daily Telegraph’s paywalled sites (not to mention the other city dailies)?
It seems a reasonable proposition. Even amongst the dare I say not very bright consumers of Murdoch’s tabloids there must be at least some of them that are starting to realise they can get the same content for free on news.com.au that they would have to pay for at the websites for his tabloids.
Does anyone actually trust these metrics?
It’d take two seconds to macro up a refreshing IP script that would register thousands of false visits an hour. Imagine what the professional astroturfers can do.
So The Guardian traffic is now lower despite having more local staff ?
I know journalism isn’t what it used to be, but if buzzfeed is being included in a survey of news websites, I’m just wondering what the entrance criteria are?
With the Daily Tele nowhere to be seen. People who use computers just don’t seem to want the content the Daily Tele puts out.
Nielsen don’t yet have a mobile panel – it’s all desktop, so all these numbers should be taken with a pinch of salt. If Buzzfeed shouldn’t be included in the ‘news category’ then there’s an argument than half of the above shouldn’t be listed!