The exclusive video of a policeman assaulting the man who died in last month's London G20 protests helped make theguardian.com the most popular UK newspaper website in April, with its second highest ever number of unique users.
In a busy news month with swine flu and G20 coverage, Guardian News & Media's website network attracted 27,324,309 unique users, up 4% from March and an increase of 47% year on year, according to the latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations Electronic published today. Page views reached 237m.
In the process theguardian.com overtook Telegraph.co.uk, the most popular newspaper website in March, which reported a 14% month-on-month fall to 23,875,251 unique users.
This represented a rise of 34% on April last year and Telegraph.co.uk's traffic is expected to surge when May's figures are released next month on the back of Telegraph Media Group's string of exclusives on MPs' expenses. Page views fell slightly from the previous month to just more than 200m.
Though down 3% from March, Mail Online also had a strong April, reporting its second highest ever number of unique users at 23,153,003. Traffic for Associated Newspapers' online network rose 28% over April 2008. Page views dropped from March to just under 184m.
Times Online, which has been the subject of speculation about the introduction of a paywall, reported a continued decline from its peak traffic in January.
The Times and Sunday Times website network was slightly down on March, falling by less than 1% month on month to 21,585,569 unique users. However, this was still a rise of 40% year on year. Page views were down from the previous month to 142m.
Times Online's News International stablemate Sun Online fell 3% from March to 20,567,178 unique users last month, a 46% increase from April last year. Page views for the Sun's online network fell slightly to just under 323m for the month.
Independent.co.uk reported record traffic of 10,432,660 unique users, representing a rise of 63% year on year and an increase of 4% on the previous month.
Mirror Group Digital also hit its highest unique user figure to date at 8,596,963, an increase of 20% month on month and a 101% rise from April last year. The Independent recorded its third highest monthly volume of page views at 43m, while Mirror Group Digital does not report page views.
Among the most popular theguardian.com content last month was an exclusive video launched online on 7 April of a policeman assaulting Ian Tomlinson during the G20 protests, shortly before he collapsed and died. Other content attracting strong traffic included coverage of Damian McBride emails, London marathon interactive guides and the "Guardian goes Twitter" April fool story.
"This was a great month for us, with a global uplift of 4%, pushing us 3.4 million users ahead of our nearest rival," said the Guardian News & Media director of digital content, Emily Bell.
"Our G20 coverage clearly played a key part in our success. We remain the most popular UK newspaper site too, with 9.6 million UK uniques compared with 8.1 million from Telegraph.co.uk."
Mail Online reported another slight decline in its UK audience, which fell by 1% from March to 30% in April, or 6,945,792 unique users.
Guardian.co.uk retained the highest UK audience by volume at 9,681,876 unique users, equivalent to 35% of overall audience.
Mirror Group Digital has the highest proportion of UK users at 45% or 3,882,401 unique users, although this fell from 54% in March.
Telegraph.co.uk recorded 8,125,116 UK users during April or 34% of the total, while Times Online drew 7,553,486 or 35%.
Sun Online's UK audience fell slightly from the previous month to 7,397,383 or 36%, while Independent.co.uk recorded 4,111,323 users in the UK or 39%.
To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediatheguardian.com or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.
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This discussion is now closed for comments but you can still sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion next timeHow about topless wimmin on page 3? It worked for Rupert Murdoch.
they'll need at least one to record the fact that they have, at last, become the leading liberal voice in the world ... the day before they went bust 'cause they'd finally bled autotrader dry.
clunk click