Non-profit auditing organisation ABCe last week released its official audit figures, placing the Guardian Online at the top of the pack in the United Kingdom.

All of the seven major newspaper Web sites studied showed a significant increase in traffic, with the Guardian.co.uk leading the trend with almost 30 million users during the first month of the year. Events such as the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, U.S. President Barack Obama's inaugural ceremony and the continuing economic depression have been credited for making January a particularly busy news period, in turn, leading to a boost in online news followers.
Following the Guardian in second place and with roughly 4 million less visitors was The Telegraph site, equating to an impressive 110 percent increase on the previous year. The Times Online, including the Sunday Times, which overtook the Daily Mail to gain third place with 23 million unique viewers, saw a 52 percent growth in traffic. The results demonstrated a similar upward trend for the other sites analysed.

In an article on the Guardian Media site, reporter Jemima Kiss notes that this increase in visitors is also paralleled, albeit to a lesser extent, by UK-based followers: "The slight increase in the proportion of UK users for all seven sites indicates a push to increase revenue as the recession bites by prioritising a UK audience through strategies including search engine marketing."

Kiss refers to unconfirmed plans by the Times to introduce a paywall scheme to its online site, which - if it goes ahead - will enable the site to charge readers for accessing some of its content. Whilst this may drive down the number of visitors, it may prove to be a profitable move in the long-term.