Brands over time

Nationwide
over time

Every year keeps its colour across every chart.│ ChatGPT, 30 Nov 2022

91 of Nationwide's own blog posts, press releases and announcements, 2020 to 2025, measured sentence by sentence, 28 of them recovered from the Internet Archive. How the writing has moved over the years, how it compares with 17 other banks, and what it sounds like in its own words.

Pages measured
91
Years covered
2020–25
Archived before ChatGPT
28
Blog · press
13 · 78

01 · Homepage

One capture a year

Nationwide's homepage from 2000 to 2026, closest to 1 July, from the Internet Archive. Pick a year or press play. Each headline is quoted from its capture and links to the archived copy.

2026nationwide.co.uk30 Jun 2026
Nationwide homepage, 30 Jun 2026

Screenshot of Nationwide’s homepage (nationwide.co.uk) as archived by the Internet Archive on 30 Jun 2026. © Nationwide or its licensors. Shown for comparison and review; not endorsed by Nationwide.

Homepage

2026

“Earn 5% AER with our Member Exclusive Bond”

Page title

Nationwide | A good way to bank

Open on the Internet Archive
  1. 2004Welcome to Nationwide
  2. 2010Latest Nationwide news
  3. 2022Could you save little and often?
  4. 2023Vote and help tackle homelessness
  5. 2025£200 when you switch. Ending 10 July
  6. 2026Earn 5% AER with our Member Exclusive Bond

25 captures. Screenshots are rendered from the archive and can pull in images archived later than the page itself; dates come from the capture. Years without a capture are greyed out in the strip.

02 · Measures by year

How the writing moved

Every year’s pages, averaged. Pick a measure. Hatched bars rest on fewer than 10 pages: context, not a finding. The page count sits under each year.

Sentence lengthAverage words per sentence.
5
10
15
Banks avg 14.4
13.0
12.3
12.7
11.5
9.1
ChatGPT · Nov 2022
2015no pages
2016no pages
2017no pages
2018no pages
2019no pages
20206 pp
202117 pp
20225 pp
20232 pp
2024no pages
20251 pp
2026no pages
10 or more pagesFewer than 10 pages: context, not a findingSector averageChatGPT released
Show as a table
YearSentence lengthPages
202013.06
202112.317
202212.75
202311.52
20259.11

Years with pages: 2020 (6), 2021 (17), 2022 (5), 2023 (2), 2025 (1). Dates come from page metadata, structured data, the URL, or the month a page was first archived (a latest possible date).

03 · Against its sector

Nationwide among banks

Each dot is one brand’s mean across all its measured pages; the tick is the sector average. Only brands with 10 or more measured pages are shown or counted. Select a dot to open that brand.

  1. Questions

    33% less than its sector

    2.0 against a sector average of 3.0; 4th lowest of 16.

  2. Em dashes

    24% less than its sector

    1.74 against a sector average of 2.30; 5th lowest of 16.

  3. "We"

    13% more than its sector

    53% against a sector average of 47%; 6th highest of 16.

Sentence lengthMid-table, 10th of 16
Nationwide 13.6
11.818.6
ContractionsMid-table, 9th of 16
Nationwide 16.0
9.428.7
"You"Mid-table, 9th of 16
Nationwide 42%
18%76%
"We"6th highest of 16
Nationwide 53%
19%77%
Questions4th lowest of 16
Nationwide 2.0
0.65.2
Long wordsMid-table, 8th of 16
Nationwide 25%
20%30%
Em dashes5th lowest of 16
Nationwide 1.74
1.263.96
AI-associated words2nd lowest of 16
Nationwide 0.36
0.342.27
ExclamationsMid-table, 9th of 16
Nationwide 0.11
0.023.75
Page length2nd lowest of 16
Nationwide 715
5261,935

Pages measured: Metro Bank 145 · TSB 170 · Virgin Money 73 · The Co-operative Bank 40 · Chase UK 3 · Zopa 208 · Atom bank 306 · Kroo 67 · Skipton Building Society 107 · Coventry Building Society 2 · Lloyds Bank 210 · Nationwide 91 · Monzo 219 · Barclays 213 · NatWest 292 · Starling Bank 298 · Santander 114 · HSBC 111. Measures and method: SGR-010; the brand list and sectors come from SGR-009.

04 · Vocabulary

Words Nationwide uses more than its peers

The words this brand reaches for more often than the rest of its sector. This is subject matter more than voice.

respect49.2 vs 0.4
websites42.2 vs 1.5
football28.4 vs 1.2
mutual32.7 vs 1.9
award33.8 vs 2.2
ltv26.2 vs 1.5
scam31.1 vs 2.3
external25.7 vs 1.5
winner16.5 vs 0.7
displayed13.5 vs 0.2
prize14.1 vs 0.5
criminals16.5 vs 0.9
NationwideSector peers

Uses per 10,000 words, ranked by weighted log-odds (Monroe et al. 2008) across 91 pages. Product names and page furniture filtered automatically; list not yet reviewed.

05 · In its own words

What it sounded like

Openings of real pages, quoted word for word, oldest first. Each links to the page, or to the Internet Archive’s copy when it has gone.

202013 Aug · PressArchived copy
“When criminals try to convince you to move money to a fake fund or investment. They often claim you'll see a large amount of money back in return to tempt you.”
Investment scams: What to watch out for
202115 Dec · PressArchived copy
“On Thursday 16 December 2021, the Bank of England announced a 0.15% increase in its base rate from 0.10% to 0.25%.”
Bank of England increases base rate
202318 Dec · Press
“Whether you're booking a dream holiday or a weekend retreat, it can be great to get away from it all. So, the last thing you want is to find out that the great travel deal you found online is in fact fake.”
Travel and holiday scams

06 · Every page

All 112 pages, by year

The full list behind every number above, with links to the live page or the archived copy. 91 count towards the measures; the rest were not measured (2 pdf report (annual report, info pack), 19 under 150 words of text). Pages with no reliable date count in the overall numbers but in no year.

20251 page
20232 pages
20225 pages
202117 pages
20206 pages
In the overall numbers, no year60 pages
Not measured21 pages
  • Rate changes23 Jan 2026 · press · 79 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
  • Rate changes18 Sep 2025 · press · 79 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
  • Rate changes24 Jun 2025 · press · 79 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
  • Rate changes16 Apr 2025 · press · 79 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
  • Rate changes20 Dec 2024 · press · 79 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
  • Rate changes1 Nov 2024 · press · 79 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
  • Rate changes3 May 2024 · press · 79 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
  • The Mortgage Works Improves Affordability Criteria4 Mar 2024 · press · 137 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
  • Rate changes25 Jan 2024 · press · 79 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
  • Rate changes30 Aug 2023 · press · 79 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
  • Rate changes27 Apr 2023 · press · 79 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
  • Base rate change15 Dec 2022 · press · 132 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
  • Base rate change3 Nov 2022 · press · 132 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
  • Base rate change22 Sep 2022 · press · 132 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
  • Base rate change4 Aug 2022 · press · 132 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
  • Base rate change16 Jun 2022 · press · 130 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
  • Base rate change5 May 2022 · press · 130 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
  • Base rate change17 Mar 2022 · press · 130 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
  • Base rate change16 Dec 2021 · press · 137 wordsUnder 150 words of text: too short to measure
  • Abstract of the Title 1991undated · info_pack · 301 wordsPDF report (annual report, info pack): listed, but kept out of every measure
  • Low Cost Home Ownership Guideundated · info_pack · 5,837 wordsPDF report (annual report, info pack): listed, but kept out of every measure

07 · Method

How this was measured

The pages

Nationwide's own blog posts, press releases and announcements, fetched from the live site in 2026 and from the Internet Archive for 2015 to November 2022. Homepages are shown as captures; product and help pages are not measured.

The measures

Code counts from ScriptGrain’s writing instruments: sentence length and rhythm, contractions, pronouns, punctuation, long words, and three published lists of AI-associated words. No AI model reads or judges any page.

What it cannot say

These measures describe style. They cannot tell who or what wrote a page, and nothing here says or implies that any brand used AI to write.

Sample sizes

Every number carries its page count. Years under 10 pages, and before-and-after comparisons with under 10 pages on a side, are shown as context only.

Sentence length
Average words per sentence.
Sentence rhythm
How much sentence length varies (standard deviation over mean). Higher reads less even.
Contractions
Contractions (we're, you'll, it's) per 1,000 words. A rough gauge of how conversational the writing is.
"You"
Share of I/we/you pronouns that are "you": how much the writing addresses the reader.
"We"
Share of I/we/you pronouns that are "we": how much the writing talks about the organisation.
Questions
Question marks per 1,000 words.
Exclamations
Exclamation marks per 1,000 words.
Long words
Share of words with seven or more letters.
Em dashes
Em dashes per 1,000 words.
AI-associated words
Words from SGR-007's three AI-associated lists, per 1,000 words. These are style markers that people used long before ChatGPT; a higher rate says nothing about who or what wrote the page.
AI-era marketing words
Marketing words that became more common in AI-era copy (seamless, elevate, unlock...), per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
Quieter LLM-favoured words
Everyday words language models are known to over-use, per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
AI-associated sentence shapes
Sentence patterns such as "not just X, but Y", found by ScriptGrain's cliche checker, per 1,000 words. A style measure only.
Page length
Average words per page.

Studies: SGR-009: Do brands in the same sector sound the same? · SGR-010: How UK brands write · SGR-011: Did brand writing change after ChatGPT?.