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Twitter enters top 100 sites; UK traffic has trebled already in 2009
February 10, 2009
Last week (w/e 07/02/09) Twitter became one of the 100 most visited websites in the UK for the first time. It ranked 91st within All Categories, placing above online heavyweights such as Expedia UK (96), Gumtree (100), easyJet (101), Digital Spy (103) and Money Supermarket (105). As the chart below illustrates, Twitter now ranks as 7th within our Social Networking and Forums category, up from 23rd just 3 weeks ago.
Twitter traffic has already more than trebled this year, and much of that growth has come since we last wrote about the site in January. As the chart below illustrates, there was a noticeable increase in visits following the media attention generated by the likes of Stephen Fry (owner of the world’s second favourite Twitter feed after Barack Obama) and Jonathon Ross.
Over the last 12 months traffic to Twitter.com has increased 27 fold. However, the service is probably even more popular than our numbers imply, as we are only measuring traffic to the main Twitter website. If the people accessing their Twitter accounts via mobile phones and third party applications (such as Twitterrific, Twitterfeed and Tweetdeck) were included, the numbers would be even higher.
One of the reasons for Twitter’s success is the ‘eco-system’ of sites and applications that it has created via its open API. One of the most notable is Twitpic, which essentially allows users to upload pictures to their Twitter profiles. Last week the site ranked 7th in our Entertainment – Photography category last week, up from 26th a month ago. Twitpic is still small in comparison to Flickr and Photobucket, but is growing rapidly. As the chart below illustrates, UK Internet traffic to the site has increased more than 5 fold already this year.
You can follow Hitwise UK on Twitter here. It’s also interesting to note that Twitter hasn’t quite achieved world domination yet. While it’s winning in the US and Australia, in Singapore Twitter currently trails Plurk.
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Posted by Robin Goad at 11:30 AM
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In Categories Blogs | Social networks | Twitter
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Links to weblogs that reference this entry:
- Twitter in the UK keeps growing (The blog of Rob Margel)
Following on from my post a few weeks ago about twitter growth in the uk growing rapidly is now this [Read More] - Twitter’s UK traffic trebles in a month (we are social)
Compared to the graph covering the 12 months up until January, that’s astounding growth (as that itself was just a few weeks ago): To quote Hitwise’s Robin Goad: Last week Twitter became one of the 100 most visited websites in the UK for the firs... [Read More] - UK Twitter traffic trebles in a month (Tech Digest)
[Read More] - Twitter Comes Closer to a Biz Plan (Editor's Blog)
[Read More]
Comments
And what is the MOST visited website in UK overall?
Posted by Livecrunch | February 10, 2009 09:23 PM
The 10 most visited websites in the UK last week were:
1. Google.co.uk
2. Facebook.com
3. eBay.co.uk
4. Google.com
5. mail.live.com (Hotmail)
6. Youtube.com
7. uk.msn.com
8. news.bbc.co.uk
9. bbc.co.uk
10. microsoft.com
Thanks, Robin
Posted by Robin Goad | February 11, 2009 09:57 AM
Robin - a comment re English, if I may.
I notice that you (UK) weblog analysts are outnumbered here by your (US) counterparts.
So it's a shame you don't support British English in your own blogs. It would be nice to see a (UK) analyst use 'probably' as the the adverb, rather than 'likely', for instance.
(But I like the blog nonetheless!)
Posted by Anonymous | February 12, 2009 11:13 AM
Glad that you like the blog, and it's a fair point. 'Likely' has now been changed to 'probably'!
Us UK analysts (i.e. me!) are indeed outnumbered by the Americans, but you'll be glad to hear that our posts are generally more popular ;-) And the Hitwise UK Twitter feed (www.twitter.com/Hitwise_UK)is MUCH more popular than either the US or Australian feeds!
Thanks, Robin
Posted by Robin Goad | February 12, 2009 11:29 AM
Hi again Robin.
Full credit to you for your prompt reply & change.
I hadn't realised you were the sole UK analyst.
hitwise's drop-down list shows Heather Hopkins (UK), but I now see that she's also got a second - (US) - entry in the same drop-down. Her page http://weblogs.hitwise.com/heather-hopkins/ actually says she's "Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Hopkins - UK". Now I'm confused!
Martin.
Posted by Anonymous | February 12, 2009 11:57 AM
Hi Martin - Heather Hopkins was my predecessor as UK analyst, but is now covering the US market. She essentially has two blogs on the site:
http://weblogs.hitwise.com/heather-hopkins/ - contains the archive of her UK posts (you'll notice the final entry is from August 2007)
http://weblogs.hitwise.com/us-heather-hopkins/ - contains her US posts, and is bang up to date (she posted today)
To confuse things even further, we have another US analyst called Heather! Heather Dougherty's US blog can be found here:
http://weblogs.hitwise.com/heather-dougherty/
I hope that makes sense!
Thanks, Robin
Posted by Robin Goad | February 12, 2009 12:06 PM
Very clear and helpful. Thanks Robin. Keep up the good (UK) work :)
Posted by Anonymous | February 12, 2009 12:17 PM
Thanks for the statistics.
please tell me, how can i see most visited sites? by country ?
Posted by sainbayar | April 14, 2009 04:38 AM
It would be nice to see a (UK) analyst use 'probably' as the the adverb, rather than 'likely', for instance.
Posted by ClubPenguinCheats | June 23, 2010 03:31 AM
Youtube only 16% ... man , they don t use youtube that much over there eh?
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Posted by Robin Hood Sword | October 28, 2010 06:19 AM
According to me twitter is the best social networking site so far.
Posted by Bedrift | November 21, 2010 02:00 PM
Twitter is getting very popular these days. This is the result of that only.
Posted by colorado springs real estate | November 22, 2010 10:08 AM
This can not be true. YouTube is the "second biggest search engine". There must be some mistake.
Posted by WizardNote | December 3, 2010 03:38 PM
I think this year Twitter could be in much higher place than last year. Do you have the ranking for this year already?
Posted by free storage shed plans | December 22, 2010 08:29 AM
It's unbelievable Facebook is way ahead of other competition. I can see no threat at this moment.
Posted by multi picture frames | January 5, 2011 07:27 AM
This was dated 2009. Do you guys have the previous year of 2010 list of tops? I am quite curious as to who made it to the top list.
Posted by skin tags | January 18, 2011 09:28 AM
Google has dominated the market and will always remain the top visited website over any period.
Posted by ryan kavanagh | March 8, 2011 04:43 PM
Twitter here ranks 7th. How about this year? I am guessing they move another slot...
Posted by wart removal | March 14, 2011 08:39 AM
Even twitter is making good progress but still facebook is dominent in social media... And I think facebook will be ahead from all other websites.
Posted by hunter valley accommodation | March 28, 2011 04:02 AM
Robin Goad has given an interesting statistics, It were interesting to observe it right now. What websites in top 10 in 2011?
I guess google.com will be out of list due to recent updates.
Posted by copy games | March 31, 2011 12:04 PM
Yeah, people are starting to use social networking massively. Undoubtedly it has become a phenomena of the 21st century, but that's not so bad at all. Yeah, but interesting what will happen if google launches it's own social network and will compete with facebook. What do you think?
Posted by Constantine | April 16, 2011 08:41 PM
The statistics is quite interesting...people are now more interested in news and blogging than anything else.. who would think?
Mike
Posted by Essay Writing Help | May 4, 2011 04:48 PM
These figures don't mean much. What I want to see is user activity on the whole. A very large percentage of those joining the site are still passive. This influx is also changing twitter's reevance to it's users.
Posted by warzabidul | February 10, 2009 12:08 PM