Hitwise Intelligence - Robin Goad - UK

Analyst Weblog

Category Archives: Food

Top 10 websites of 2008

March 03, 2009

We published the results of the Hitwise UK Online Performance Awards today. These list the 10 most visited websites in the UK during 2008 for over 60 industry categories. You can see the full list on the awards microsite, but... Continue reading...

Eating out: afternoon tea, listing sites and the MoneySavingExpert

November 14, 2008

Last month we published a blog about recipe searches and promised to follow up with another post about eating out and restaurant websites. Well, here’s the post and there’s a lot to cover, from afternoon tea at the Ritz to... Continue reading...

What comfort food recipes tell us about UK search behaviour

October 28, 2008

Last week Heather Hopkins pointed out that food sites are weathering the financial storm in the US. We like to encourage (internal!) plagiarism at Hitwise, so in that spirit I decided to carry out some similar analysis of the UK... Continue reading...

Posted by Robin Goad at 03:00 PM | (6) | (0)
In Categories Food | Search

Supermarkets continue to grow online

October 17, 2008

While looking at the fastest growing retail sectors for this month’s retail webinar, we noticed that our Grocery and Alcohol has been doing well this year. As the chart below illustrates, its share of Internet visits has been increasing gradually... Continue reading...

Pasta Hut vs. Pizza Hut

October 09, 2008

Pizza Hut made the headlines earlier in the week after rebranding itself as Pasta Hut in the UK. If the move really is just a clever bit of PR, as some people suspect, then it seems to have worked. In... Continue reading...

Posted by Robin Goad at 02:00 PM | (2) | (0)
In Categories Branding | Food

Has the credit crunch killed ethical consumerism?

September 17, 2008

While the troubles facing the finance industry have picked up the headlines this week, the impact of the credit crunch continues to be felt elsewhere in the economy. One assumption people have made is that consumers will be less inclined... Continue reading...

Food websites grow as self-sufficiency gains popularity

July 18, 2008

Almost a year ago we investigated the seasonality of popular recipes. Recent analysis for 2008 reveals a similar pattern, with searches for cake recipes featuring heavily again this summer. However, it was interesting to note that visits to the Food... Continue reading...

Sainsbury’s website downtime analysis

June 19, 2008

Yesterday the BBC reported that Sainsbury’s had suspended its online grocery store, and looking at the site this morning that still seems to be the case. One of the great things about Hitwise’s daily data is that we are able... Continue reading...

Retail price index and organic food

March 20, 2008

The Office of National Statistics (ONS) has just announced the latest round of changes to the basket of goods it uses to calculate the UK retail price index (RPI). In addition to providing inflation figures, the make up of the... Continue reading...

Group Recipes: social networking for the hungry

February 11, 2008

Since publishing our social networking report last month, people have been asking us to identify successful niche social networking / web 2.0 sites. Wel,l here’s one that saw a real jump in traffic last week: Group Recipes. The site operates... Continue reading...

Posted by Robin Goad at 04:50 PM | (0) | (0)
In Categories Food | Search | Social networks

Moonpig.com, Valentine’s poems and romantic breaks

February 07, 2008

Online card delivery company Moonpig.com is currently experiencing its highest ever level of UK Internet traffic in the run up to Valentine’s Day. For the week ending 2 February 2008, UK Internet visits to the website have grown six-fold by... Continue reading...

Supermarkets' online share increasing

December 13, 2007

Supermarkets have increased their share of the UK online retail market in the run up to Christmas. A Hitwise custom category of the top 45 supermarket operated websites accounted for 6.6% of all UK Internet visits to Shopping and Classifieds... Continue reading...

Christmas market search trends

December 05, 2007

The setting up of a Christmas market just around the corner from the Hitwise UK office made me realize just how popular these seasonal attractions have become. According to Wikipedia, the first Christmas market was held in Dresden in 1434,... Continue reading...

HSBC, Cadbury's and Facebook

September 05, 2007

There are many differing opinions as to the impact – positive or negative – of social networks on other sites, and a couple of recent examples provide some insight from either side of the fence. One positive side there was... Continue reading...

Posted by Robin Goad at 01:20 PM | (2) | (0)
In Categories Financial Services | Food | Social networks

Delia Smith is top chef: let her cook cake

August 31, 2007

Bill recently wrote a very interesting Time column on America’s favourite foods. Following his example I decided to investigate the BBC Food website – the most visited food website in the UK - for this week’s Siteseeing column in the... Continue reading...

Posted by Robin Goad at 01:40 PM | (0) | (0)
In Categories Food | Search