Online news publisher the Mail & Guardian Online has broken through the key 200 000 reader mark, surpassing previous readership records achieved during the Iraq war, when readers turned to the net en masse for news.
The website, Africa’s first internet news publication, notched up more than 234 000 readers for the month of August and almost 1,7-million page impressions.
The readership of the web publication has almost doubled in the space of one year, said Matthew Buckland, editor of the M&G Online. He noted that the record figures were achieved despite introducing forced registration on areas of the site — which tends to have a negative impact on readership levels.
“The recent upsurge in internet readership also probably has a lot to do with the stories on the e-mail and web virus attacks in this country and perhaps the Absa internet hacking story … as readers turned to the net to get expert opinions and news on the story,” said Buckland.
“We have also embarked on a couple of joint ventures that have helped our readership, most notably our cooperation with Africa Online, M-Web Zimbabwe, M-Web Nigeria, M-Web Namibia and M-Web Africa’s portal. We now have our news headlines and brand on their front pages.
“A few other deals, most notably our joint venture with South African search engine Ananzi and headline syndication service Moreover, has also helped our traffic achieve these new heights,” said Buckland.
The figures were achieved on M-Web’s ART statistics system, which employs the conservative counter-based method of measuring a website’s traffic, as opposed to the much more generous log-file method of measuring statistics.
“We have beaten most internet publications in our class hands-down, to the extent where we consider our primary competitors to be IOL and News24, the websites of media giants Independent Newspapers and Naspers. We have our sights set on these publications,” said Buckland.
M&G Online was the first internet-based news publication in Africa. Launched in early 1994, it has received numerous accolades and awards, including being voted one of the world’s top 175 websites by Forbes.com in 2001.