A Sussex web portal has been gathering a huge online following with visitors from across the county and around the world.

Last month, the Sussex thisis web sites recorded more than one million page impressions for the first time.

The service's popularity has been growing since a relaunch last summer and the latest figures show more than 1.3 million pages were viewed in August.

Helen Grant, head of digital publishing at Newsquest (Sussex), said: "The one million barrier is a big breakthrough and now we have smashed it, having come frustratingly close at the end of July.

"We have built the leading service for Sussex online information with the most comprehensive and frequently-updated web pages in the county."

The thisis sites have been running since 1995 when they offered daily news and sport.

The sites now include an in-depth news service with archive, features from The Argus specialist sections and local guides as well as a range of categories covering jobs, lifestyle and community interests.

Ms Grant said: "No-one else has this information. The news comes from the early edition of The Argus and is updated by a dedicated online journalist throughout the day.

"When news dictates, bulletins can be changing every five minutes.

"We also work with a number of partners to provide extra services, such as classified ad searches from Fish4 and education news from Schoolsnet."

The digital team has been checking usage patterns from the server logs to find the sites' popular sections and to gauge where to develop the content.

An on-site survey has been running during recent weeks. Ms Grant said: "We have found there is a fairly even split between men and women looking at the pages, 46 per cent of visitors are female.

"We know our core following is Sussex-based but we have had queries from people in Korea and America.

"The key now is to build on the popularity we have gained. Our research shows 30 per cent of our visitors look at the site every week with ten per cent of these returning daily.

"This is a great start but we are working to add even more features to boost the number of repeat visits."

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