Hitwise Intelligence - Robin Goad - UK
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Fast moving search terms: Olympics, BBC iPlayer, UCAS and fantasy football
August 18, 2008
The 10 fastest moving search terms in the UK last week were:
1. ucas track
2. bbc olympics
3. fantasy premier league
4. dream team
5. michael phelps
6. tom daley
7. the sun dream team
8. joules
9. last choir standing
10. carphone warehouse uk
The Olympics continue to dominate the fast moving search terms list, with three of the top 10 terms last week. Two of these referred to particular competitors, although the fortunes record breaking American swimmer Michael Phelps stand in contrast to those of young British diver Tom Daley. Elsewhere, however, Team GB has had a fantastic Olympics, and the UK currently sits fourth in the medals table behind China, the USA and Australia. As the official UK broadcaster of the games, the BBC has benefitted significantly from this weekend’s success.
As we predicted on Thursday, and as the chart below illustrates, last week was the busiest ever for the BBC Sport website. For last week as a whole the site ranked as the 14th most visited in the UK, and on Saturday it entered the top 10 for the first time. The ‘Live Action’ Olympics feed, which includes both text updates and video streaming via iPlayer, has evidently helped keep people on the BBC Sport site, with the average session time increasing to an all time high of 8 minutes 46 seconds. Finally, the stand alone iPlayer site also reached a new high, ranking as the 28th most visited site overall last week.
Another factor that boosted traffic to our Sports category last week was opening weekend of the English Premier League. Three of the 10 fastest moving terms last week refer to fantasy football games: ‘fantasy premier league’, ‘dream team’, and ‘the sun dream team’ (as we highlighted last week, these are the two most popular online competitions). However, looking at our custom category of fantasy football sites, traffic is actually down compared with last year.
Last week’s top fast moving search term, ‘ucas track’, owes its appearance to the release of A-Level results in England and Wales. Traffic to the official UCAS site shot up as a result, although the peak was slightly lower than in previous years. At number 8 in the list, ‘joules’ is an upmarket clothing brand that has benefitted from Team GB’s Olympic sailing success. The two Experian Mosaic types that most over-index as visitors to the company’s website are Rural Isolation and Symbols of Success, both of which count Boats and Yachting amongst their favourite recreation activities.
Keep up to date with the latest internet usage data by following Hitwise UK on Twitter.
Posted by Robin Goad at 12:00 PM
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In Categories BBC | Demographics | Fashion | Fast moving search terms | Football | Olympics | Retail | Sport | TV | Video
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Comments
Hi Chris - this a very good question, and it somethign that we'll address next week once the games are over. Keep an eye on the blog for the answer!
Thanks, Robin
Posted by Robin Goad | August 21, 2008 08:05 AM
Here's bit of a sneak preview of some of the Olympics data we'll be able to provide next week: http://twitter.com/Hitwise_UK/statuses/894202774
Posted by Robin Goad | August 21, 2008 09:24 AM
I would love to know what the stats have to say about the Phelps effect, or just Olympic effect have had on Speedo, following suggestions that their kit has been a key part of swimmer success this year. Does Phelps success create an uplift in searches for Speedo or traffic to their site? How does the Olympic uplift for other sports brands compare to the success of Speedo? (Non-commercial curiosity - to help satisfy a pub argument!) Thanks in advance
Posted by Chris Guest | August 20, 2008 07:22 PM