Following the news last week that Kate Middleton had gone into labour, online news outlets and media websites experienced a surge of around 94 million visits – an increase of 44% against the average number of daily visits.
Prior to the future king being born later on the Monday evening, the number of visits to news sites rose by 29 million, according to research conducted by Experian.
The company revealed that visits on the day of the royal birth were up by around 22% against the visit numbers on the previous Monday.
Figures also show that the UK’s tabloids received twice as much user traffic as the broadsheet sites.
Experian’s digital insight manager for marketing services, James Murray, explained that this particular element of the figures was not unexpected, since tabloid sites usually receive higher total visitor numbers than broadsheets.
Despite this, Murray continued, the broadsheet sites did experience higher levels of growth in traffic, which suggests that broadsheet readers were more interested in news of the Royal Baby than the readers of tabloids.
The Daily Mail and BBC News were two of the highest recipients of visitor traffic, while The Guardian rose above the other broadsheets to experience the greatest influx. Sky News reported similar success, with an increase of 93% against the previous week’s figures.
However, some have speculated that The Guardian’s growth in visitor figures was not due to it publishing engrossing reports of Kate Middleton’s labour or speculation surrounding the sex of the baby; instead, the Guardian may have driven traffic to its newsfeed by offering users a ‘republican’ button, which hid news regarding the royal birth.
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