Guardian.co.uk upped its lead over Telegraph.co.uk and was close to breaking the 26 million unique user mark in October, according to official national newspaper web traffic data released Thursday by the Audit Bureau of Circulations electronic, Press Gazette reported.

Mail Online came in third with more than 21million monthly unique users, passing the Times Online.

According to the latest traffic data, Guardian.co.uk expanded the gap between itself and second-place Telegraph.co.uk from 1.24 million in September to 2.77 million last month, Press Gazette reported.

Telegraph.co.uk's numbers increased 1.2 percent from September to October, and 109 percent year-on-year with an October monthly user figure of 23.2 million. Mail Online's numbers rose 18.3 percent in month-on-month, and 56.7 percent from last year,to a total of 21.2 million monthly uniques.

The Times Online dropped to fourth place with 20.47m unique users, and while growth was flat from September to October, it was up 64.56 percent year-on-year, according to Press Gazette.

The Sun Online came in fifth place traffic up 8.52 percent from September and up 86.3 percent from last year, with an October ABCe of 17.12 million. Independent broke the 8 million unique user mark with 8.4 million, up 5.2 percent over last month, and up 93.3 percent year-on-year.

The Mirror Group network of Web sites increased traffic by 10.89 percent from September to October, to 5.83 unique users, Press Gazette reported.