About Hitwise
Hitwise is the leader in online competitive intelligence. Contact Hitwise to maximize your online marketing programs.
Hitwise Intelligence - Robin Goad - UK
Analyst Weblog
« Singapore GP excites F1 fans but not internet searches | Kim Kardashian most popular celebrity using Twitter »
Ed Miliband wins online majority as well as Labour leadership
September 28, 2010
With the Labour leadership decided last weekend it’s interesting to see how the popular opinion of the public through online Internet searches was reflected in the eventual triumph of Ed Miliband.
Much was made in the media of the sibling rivalry between Ed and his brother David, but searches over the last four weeks in the lead up to the election of the new Labour leader show a clear favourite in Ed Miliband. Of all of the search term variations which included the word ‘miliband’ 33% of those were for ‘ed miliband’. By contrast, ‘david miliband’ attracted just 17% of searches, almost half of those of his younger brother.
Charting the history of the two search terms shows that online interest in the two brothers was neck and neck up until the week before the election, where searches for ‘ed miliband’ spiked significantly. Searches for ‘ed miliband’ increased by 785% in the last week, whereas ‘david miliband’ increased only 233%.
As searches online increased for the two front running candidates, traffic also increased to political blogs in the UK. The chart below shows a general dip in traffic to UK political blogs over the summer holiday period, but a 3% spike in traffic in the week preceding the election of Mr Miliband.
By far the biggest recipient of traffic within that 3% uplift during the week ending 25 September 2010 was Guido Fawkes’ Blog, which also was a huge online hit during the General Election back in April. Guido Fawkes received 20.95% of all the political blogging traffic during the week. Interestingly, the Conservative homepage was ranked third for UK Internet visits, whereas a Labour blog didn’t feature until 15th in the list.
Tweet
Posted by Robin Goad at 03:30 PM
| 
(7)
| 
(0)
In Categories 2010 General Election | Government | Politics
Comments
My goodness, the picture above is a dead give-away ! We've had the depressive Brown, now we get the other half, the MANIC one.
Probably even more frightening, should he ever get his claws back on the levers of power.
Alan Douglas
Posted by Alan Douglas | September 29, 2010 07:21 AM
Could it not be just the fact that more of us are aware of David than ed?
David has been news in many articles from the banana incident to the Hillary Clinton 'relationship', whereas what has Ed ever done?
Posted by Pete | September 29, 2010 11:05 AM
Good luck 'red ed' its time to return to the core socialist values of Labour.
Posted by Document Scanning Services | September 29, 2010 11:13 AM
Interesting but entirely accurate?
A lot of entries I saw were DM, EM or people would not even mention the names - very difficult to track.
I wonder if anyone did a Twibbon count as well?
Posted by Get Labour Out | September 29, 2010 06:51 PM
Interestingly, the Conservative homepage was ranked third for UK Internet visits, whereas a Labour blog didn’t feature until 15th in the list.
Conservative Home is not the official Conservative Party homepage. It is an independent blog run by Tim Montgomerie.
And Liberal Conspiracy at 13th uses the word "liberal" in the title in the chiefly U.S. sense of "socialist". It is run by a member of the Labour Party, with several other posters being members either of the Labour Party or of its affiliate bodies. It is a Labour blog in all but name.
Posted by A Pedant | September 29, 2010 09:35 PM
Isn't the point that people didn't know much about Ed Miliband before this summer whereas David was already foreign secretary? So it shouldn't be so surprising....
Posted by jim pickard | September 30, 2010 10:56 AM
Perhaps the difference in search figures was because people were already familiar with the David Milliband name and therefore did not have to research him as much as Ed Milliband who was an unknown figure. Go figure!
Posted by Tom Murphy | September 29, 2010 04:38 AM