Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - UK
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February 08, 2007
Weather and Delayed Trains Cause Flurry of Activity Online
With news of snow blanketing the country, we checked Hitwise data and as expected, there was a flurry of online activity in the UK yesterday on weather and transport websites. The market share of UK internet visits to websites in the Weather category increased 76% yesterday, and the category hit its highest peak of any day in the past year. Yesterday, one in every 76 UK internet visits went to a weather website.
The most visited weather website in the UK yesterday was BBC Weather (www.bbc.co.uk/weather) accounting for nearly half of category visits (49.20%). The BBC Weather website's market share of visits climbed 87% yesterday. The site took a ranking of #13 among all websites yesterday, up from #26 the day before and the website's highest ranking in the past year. The Met Office (www.metoffice.gov.uk) ranked #2 with 15% of Weather category visits and the site's share of visits climbed 196%.
UK internet users also turned to the web for information on roads and transport. The market share of UK internet visits to Highways Agency increased 192% yesterday and the website ranked #31 among Transport websites, up from #77 the previous day. Market share of visits to Traffic England climbed 153% yesterday and the website's ranking rose to 52 from 122 among Transport websites.
I love snow. I grew up in Ottawa and so was raised getting hammered by snow balls (launched by my big brother!) and building snow forts in the front yard. Sadly, 5 centimeters was enough to disrupt transport but not enough for the games to really begin! If it's any consolation - according to reports from home it is -20 Celcius in Ottawa at present. Any wonder I moved to the UK?
Posted by Heather Hopkins at 12:50 PM
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Comments
The Met Office web site was unavailable for long periods yesterday with an excess traffic error notice.
Posted by: AJ Cann at February 8, 2007 04:27 AM
