Evening Standard web traffic fell almost 20% in February

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The website for the London Evening Standard recorded a drop in traffic of almost 20 per cent for February, compared to January when the site enjoyed a rise of nearly 43 per cent. According to figures released by the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) today for the shorter month of February, the Evening Standard website's monthly unique browsers fell by 19.96 per cent month-on-month to just over 3.7 million, taking it back under the 4 million mark it overtook in January when traffic for the month hit 4.7 million.

Average daily browsers of the Evening Standard website also fell month-on-month, by 12.6 per cent, to 181,296.

Managing director of digital for the Evening Standard, as well as the Independent and i, Zach Leonard, told Journalism.co.uk that "statistically" March is currently "tracking to January levels, although the month is incomplete".

The Evening Standard's monthly and daily traffic declines were the highest recorded by ABC for February, with all but one newspaper website recording a fall in monthly traffic.

The second highest monthly decline was recorded for Mirror Group Digital, with a drop of 14.07 per cent, followed by the Mail Online, which had a fall in unique browsers of 12.7 per cent to almost 110.7 million for February.

Metro was the only audited newspaper website to record an increase in monthly unique browsers, of 1.17 per cent.

According to the ABC report, Metro, the Guardian and the Independent were the only newspaper sites to record increases in average daily browsers, of 4.5 per cent, 6.3 per cent and 0.18 per cent respectively. In a statement the Guardian said February's results for average daily browsers represent a new record of more than 4.5 million.

The news outlet also said February was "a record month for the Guardian’s mobile site, attracting its highest ever level of traffic".