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Hitwise Intelligence - Robin Goad - UK

Analyst Weblog

Category Archives: News and Media

Searches for climate change and energy efficiency (Blog Action Day)

October 15, 2009

Today is Blog Action Day and, as with last year, Alan Long has beaten me to it with an excellent post on this year’s topic, climate change. I’m taking a similar approach, looking at climate changes related searches in the... Continue reading...

Micro pig searches benefit the Daily Mail and Telegraph

October 14, 2009

As we pointed out via Twitter on Monday, the fastest moving search term in the UK last week was ‘micro pigs’. These extremely cute little pigs are the latest pet trend, and have already picked the inevitable celebrity endorsements -... Continue reading...

The importance of photo searches

September 29, 2009

Whilst looking through this week’s list of fast moving search terms, one term that caught my eye was ‘great north run photos’. As the chart below illustrates, searches for the term spiked last week (w/e 26/09/09) in line with the... Continue reading...

Record week for Google News

September 21, 2009

A while ago we highlighted how Google News UK picks up more traffic from searches for celebrities than any other type of news. Last week was a bumper week for celebrity news stories (unfortunately for sad reasons in many cases),... Continue reading...

American visitors to UK news websites

September 18, 2009

I recently blogged about changing Internet usage habits in the UK, and specifically about the shift from transactional to content based websites. Within that mix, it is typically the growth of newer areas - such as social networks and video... Continue reading...

Microsoft Bing News Search

August 27, 2009

Amongst all of the excitement about Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine, one element of the new service that hasn’t received a huge amount of coverage is its news search function. Bing News Search offers a similar service to Google News,... Continue reading...

Content driven websites receive 73% more traffic than transactional ones

August 13, 2009

The chart on this slide illustrates the percentage of all UK Internet visits accounted for by the largest and most significant online categories – and how this situation has changed over the last three years. As you can see, there... Continue reading...

Michael Jackson, Twitter and TMZ

June 26, 2009

Following the tragic death of Michael Jackson last night, UK Internet visits to his homepage increased 17 fold. Yesterday www.michaeljackson.com was the 9th most visited Music website in the UK, and the highest ranked artist homepage. TMZ, the website that... Continue reading...

Twitter sending traffic to online media sites, but not online retailers

June 24, 2009

Thanks to everyone that listened to today’s Twitter webinar - we managed to reach capacity with 200 people logged in!. If you missed it, we’ll be posting the recording soon and will email / blog / tweet the link. In... Continue reading...

Iran searches and Twitter

June 23, 2009

Given the current political situation in the country, we were expecting to see a spike in searches for ‘iran’ last week. As the chart below illustrates, there were more searches for Iran during the week ending 20/06/09 than for Iraq,... Continue reading...

Local Internet data: Liverpool example

June 15, 2009

Last month I had the pleasure of speaking at the Digital Editors Network forum, an event organized by Francois Nel from the Journalism Leaders Program at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLAN). One of the topics that came up during... Continue reading...

Initial Bing stats

June 08, 2009

Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine, was announced by Steve Balmer on May 28 and officially launched on June 3. I’ve held off putting up our initial UK statistics until now for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I couldn’t think of... Continue reading...

Top 100 student websites in the UK

June 02, 2009

Yesterday I received a call from Sridhar Venkatapuram of the London Business School asking me about the online behaviour of students in the UK. I mentioned on Twitter that I was pulling a list of the 100 most popular websites... Continue reading...

MPs’ expenses update: Telegraph picks up 1 in every 756 UK page views

May 19, 2009

Now that the MPs’ expenses scandal has led to the resignation of Michael Martin, the House of Commons’ Speaker, it seems like a good to provide an update on the Internet data. As the chart below illustrates, searches for our... Continue reading...

Posted by Robin Goad at 04:00 PM | (1) | (0)
In Categories Government | News and Media | Politics

MPs' expenses searches drive Telegraph page views

May 14, 2009

The Telegraph’s MPs' expenses story has dominated the headlines for almost a week now. As the chart below illustrates, searches for a portfolio of terms relating to story increased by 575% last week, and our data will likely show a... Continue reading...

Swine flu searches increase 58-fold

May 05, 2009

UK Internet searches for ‘swine flu’ increased 58-fold last week, making it Britain’s fastest moving search term. Of the 10.9 million distinct search terms we tracked in the UK last week, ‘swine flu’ ranked 20th. As the chart below illustrates,... Continue reading...

Budget 2009: paid search tactics

April 27, 2009

As you would expect, last week’s budget received a lot of press attention. UK Internet searches for the term ‘budget’ increased 27-fold between the weeks ending April 18th and 25th. However, as the chart below illustrates, searches for the term... Continue reading...

UK Internet users spending more time on social networks than shopping online

April 21, 2009

UK Internet users are spending less of their online time shopping and more time browsing online media. During March 2009, 8.6% of all UK Internet visits went to online retail websites and 9.8% to social networking websites. A year ago,... Continue reading...

Interest rates: the relationship between online and offline behaviour

April 15, 2009

The Internet is now a key source of info for the majority of people in the UK. Consequently, search engines are one of the first places people turn to for information on everything from celebrity culture to the global financial... Continue reading...

Festival fever and a good week for the NME

April 08, 2009

The sun may be shining, but it’s not quite time for the music festivals yet (it has to start raining for that to happen). However, following the release of the Reading and Leeds Festival line-ups in the NME last week,... Continue reading...

What would a Google-Twitter marriage mean?

April 06, 2009

Last week it was reported that Google is in talks to purchase Twitter. Therefore, now seems like a good time to revisit some of the stats, starting with the top level traffic figures. As the chart below illustrates, UK Internet... Continue reading...

Daniel Hannan: has social media finally gone political in the UK?

March 31, 2009

It is generally accepted that his campaign team’s use of social media contributed to Barack Obama’s victory in last year’s American presidential election. But over on this side of the pond, politicians have been much slower to grasp the nettle... Continue reading...

Celeb and entertainment searches dominate Google News

March 26, 2009

Last week we revealed that Twitter had overtaken Google News in the UK. However, although everyone’s favourite micro-blogging service receives more UK Internet visits, Google News remains the greater source of traffic for News and Media websites. As the chart... Continue reading...

Twitter and UK newspaper websites

March 16, 2009

Last week (w/e 14/03/09) Twitter.com was the 54th most visited website in the UK, up from 66th the week before. One consequence of Twitter rapid rise up the rankings is that the micro-blogging service has now overtaken most of the... Continue reading...

TV and Games are UK's most searched for subjects

March 09, 2009

For our second guest posting on the UK blog, I’d like to hand over to Richard Seymour, Hitwise UK Client Intelligence Analyst, to take us through some of the research he has carried out recently on UK Search Engines. For... Continue reading...

Facebook the most searched for brand in the UK

March 05, 2009

Britain’s favourite social network and the second most visited website in the UK after Google, is also the most searched-for brand by UK Internet users. During the 12 weeks ending 3 January 2009, 1 in every 42 Internet searches in... Continue reading...

The Sun and the Baby Father

February 19, 2009

According to Journalism.co.uk, the Sun’s February 13th story about the 13 year old ‘baby father’ Alfie Patten became the newspaper’s most popular online article of all time. As the chart below illustrates, the Sun’s market share of UK Internet visits... Continue reading...

Posted by Robin Goad at 09:30 AM | (0) | (0)
In Categories News and Media | Search | Social networks

“Money Saving Expert” Martin Lewis the most searched-for personality in the UK

February 18, 2009

Martin Lewis, creator of the “consumer revenge” website Money Saving Expert was the most searched-for personality by UK Internet users during the 12 weeks ending January 3 2009. There were 11% more searches for Martin Lewis than US President Barack... Continue reading...

The Telegraph: how to pick up traffic from Digg

February 12, 2009

The Telegraph recently ran an excellent story that included our recent Twitter data. While reading the article I noticed the Digg widget illustrated in the picture below on the newspaper’s homepage. Launched last October it lists the most ‘dugg’ Telegraph... Continue reading...

Posted by Robin Goad at 10:00 AM | (7) | (0)
In Categories BBC | News and Media | Social networks

Twitter traffic increases 10-fold in a year

January 21, 2009

Following Heather’s post yesterday on Twitter overtaking Digg in the US, here is some UK data on the most talked about website of the moment: UK Internet traffic to the site has increased 10-fold over past last 12 months. For... Continue reading...

TV and US media websites big election winners in the UK

November 06, 2008

The US presidential election was a global media event, and Barack Obama’s historic victory caused a spike in traffic to news websites in the UK. Here is a list of the 10 most visited in the News and Media websites... Continue reading...

UK Internet searches for the US Election

November 04, 2008

After months of campaigning, Americans are today finally voting for the 44th president of their country. The US research team have been doing a great job monitoring search behaviour across the pond, so I thought I’d have a look at... Continue reading...

X Factor vs. Strictly Come Dancing 2008

October 30, 2008

The annual pre-Christmas battle for Saturday night tea time TV supremacy is well under way. In the red corner: ITV’s The X Factor, with Cheryl Cole replacing Sharon Osbourne on the judging panel. In the blue corner: the BBC’s Strictly... Continue reading...

DIY and gardening content online

October 23, 2008

Last month we showed how traffic to House and Garden retail websites has been increasing, despite – or, perhaps more accurately, because of - the credit crunch. Both DIY and furniture retailers are benefitting from this boom, but what about... Continue reading...

Posted by Robin Goad at 01:00 PM | (0) | (0)
In Categories News and Media | Property | Weather

Yahoo!, Google and MSN: news services compared

October 20, 2008

After we published our blog post on news aggregators last month, one commenter asked why we hadn’t included Yahoo! News? I answered that Yahoo’s News service is different from Google’s because is contains its own content, rather than links to... Continue reading...

Posted by Robin Goad at 02:30 PM | (0) | (0)
In Categories Email | Google | News and Media

The cult of Robert Peston and BBC blogs

October 07, 2008

Is Robert Peston - "the face of the credit crunch" - the hardest working man at the BBC? The corporation’s business editor starts his day at breakfast time on the Today Programme and doesn’t seem to finish until bed time... Continue reading...

The role of news aggregators in the UK

October 02, 2008

News aggregators come in many shapes and sizes, ranging from straight forward aggregators (e.g. Google News) to social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Stumble Upon and Delicious. When creating a custom category of the top sites in the UK we... Continue reading...

Paid search rates by industry

September 09, 2008

We launched our New Search Intelligence tool in the UK today and, amongst other enhancements, it includes additional paid / organic search data. One great new feature allows you to measure paid search rates by industry, so I thought I’d... Continue reading...

9 in 10 UK searches are navigational / branded

August 14, 2008

We’ve just updated our data on navigational / branded search in the UK for our new research report, Managing Your Brand Online. During May 2008, 88% of searches for the top 2,000 search terms in the UK were branded in... Continue reading...

Football: transfers and fantasy

August 12, 2008

Never mind the Olympics, football websites remain the post popular sport sites in the UK, currently accounting for a third of visits to our Sports category. As you can see from the chart below, by last week traffic had already... Continue reading...

The changing profile of online newspaper readership

August 01, 2008

Using Hitwise data in combination with Experian’s Mosaic lifestyle information enables us to build a rich user profile of a given website or industry. Mosaic is a household-based segmentation system that classifies all UK households and neighborhoods into 61 unique... Continue reading...

Posted by Robin Goad at 08:21 AM | (0) | (0)
In Categories Demographics | Mosaic lifestyle | News and Media

Knife crime searches: statistics, prevention and geography

July 24, 2008

At Hitwise we believe that our search data provides an unprecedented insight into what people are thinking. This information has a huge number of uses, from spotting the latest hot band to measuring the popularity of any number of products,... Continue reading...

Superbrands: demographics and lifestyle information

July 23, 2008

The Centre for Brand Analysis released its list of the top Superbrands in the UK earlier this week, with Google taking the top spot after placing third last year. By looking at the profile of visitors to their homepages, we... 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...

Twitter UK traffic: up 485% this year, 70% higher than USA

July 16, 2008

The two Heathers (Hopkins and Dougherty) have both written about the growth of Twitter in the US recently, so here is some UK data on the micro-blogging service. As you can see from the chart below, the site’s growth has... Continue reading...

TV spoilers and Digital Spy

June 25, 2008

Anyone who uses Wikipedia or IMDB frequently will be used to the ‘spoiler warning’ notification when reading an entry on a book or film. While notifications in these and similar websites are designed to help you avoid spoilers, there are... Continue reading...

Posted by Robin Goad at 10:30 AM | (2) | (0)
In Categories News and Media | Search | TV

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...

Mortgage calculators up, 100% mortgages down

June 16, 2008

When Abbey last month became the last big bank to abandon 100 per cent mortgages, it did so in the face of the credit crunch and falling demand from buyers. As the graph below shows, the volume of UK internet... Continue reading...

Blog traffic reaches all time high

June 10, 2008

UK Internet visits to weblogs reached an all time high last week. As the chart below illustrates, Blogs and Personal Websites accounted for 1.19% of all UK traffic, equivalent to one in every 84 internet visits. Taking the slightly longer... Continue reading...

iPhone website reaches a new high as rumour mill goes into overdrive

June 09, 2008

Apple is expected to launch a new version of its iPhone at the Apple World Wide Developers' Conference in San Francisco this afternoon (UK time). As with all such events, the speculation amongst Apple fans and foes has almost reached... Continue reading...

UK house prices: searches and sales

June 02, 2008

Heather Hopkins recently identified a correlation between house searches and house sales in the US. She compared searches for the term "homes for sale" with actual sales data from the American National Association of Realtors, and found that there was... Continue reading...

Does the BBC dominate online news in the UK?

May 29, 2008

Later today the BBC Trust will release a report that aims to answer the question: does the corporation dominate the online news space at the expense of its commercial rivals? As I write this, the findings aren’t yet known, but... Continue reading...

Posted by Robin Goad at 08:00 AM | (0) | (0)
In Categories News and Media

Freesat proves popular online

May 14, 2008

The launch of Freesat, the free satellite TV service provided by the BBC and ITV in the UK, proved popular with online consumers during its launch week. UK Internet traffic to www.freesat.co.uk, the service’s online homepage, increased by 627% between... Continue reading...

Google delivers over a third of all UK traffic – trademark changes will have a significant impact

April 28, 2008

The top 100 Google Internet properties sent over one third of all Internet traffic to websites in the UK during March 2008. A custom category consisting of the 100 most visited Google-owned web properties in the UK accounted for 36.55%... Continue reading...

Posted by Robin Goad at 11:00 AM | (11) | (1)
In Categories Google | News and Media | Search

London Mayoral elections: what does the Internet data say?

April 22, 2008

A lot has been made about how the candidates and voters for the London Mayoral elections on May 1st have embraced the Internet like never before - at least in British political terms, as this is one area where the... Continue reading...

Apple iPhone UK price drop

April 21, 2008

Last week Apple and 02 announced that they had cut the price of the 8GB iPhone by £100 in the UK until June 1st. As always with Apple, the announcement generated a huge amount of media interest – including speculation... Continue reading...

Top 10 UK search terms: social networks dominate the list

April 14, 2008

We have just announced the winners of the Hitwise UK Online Performance Awards 2007, so congratulations to all of the websites that placed within their industry top 10. In addition to the top websites, we also announced the top 10... Continue reading...

The Independent gains online market share in the UK

April 09, 2008

Earlier this year we highlighted the growth of newspaper websites in the UK. As the chart below illustrates, the market share of the UK Independent, which has traditionally lagged behind most of its rivals online, has more doubled over the... Continue reading...

Posted by Robin Goad at 02:52 PM | (6) | (1)
In Categories News and Media | Search

Miss Bimbo: who is visiting?

April 01, 2008

The ‘virtual fashion game’ Miss Bimbo has picked up a lot of press - Google News UK was the second ranked site receiving up traffic from the search term ‘miss bimbo’ last week. The website allows users to create a... Continue reading...

Brits more interested in US presidential race than domestic politics

February 29, 2008

UK Internet users are more interested in the United States presidential race than politics at home. Senator Barack Obama is the most searched for political figure in the UK, receiving three times as many searches on his name last week... Continue reading...

Posted by Robin Goad at 03:00 PM | (0) | (0)
In Categories News and Media | Politics | Search

Eduardo injury and YouTube

February 26, 2008

The horrific injury sustained by Arsenal’s Brazilian-born Croatian striker Eduardo da Silva has led to an outpouring of sympathy from football fans, and not just supporters of Arsenal or Croatia. Searches for ‘eduardo’ increased almost forty-fold last week, and ‘eduardo... Continue reading...

UK Polish Internet usage on the rise

February 20, 2008

Estimates as to the number of Polish people in the UK range from half a million to over a million. Mass immigration from Central and Eastern Europe has led to a rush for the ‘Polish Pound’, with everyone from multinational... Continue reading...

Yahoo! and Microsoft: UK perspective

February 05, 2008

Following on from Bill’s and Heather’s posts, I wanted to share some UK data on the proposed Yahoo! and Microsoft deal. First up: webmail services, and as the chart below illustrates, Microsoft has a dominant market share with its Hotmail... Continue reading...

UK Internet traffic to newspaper websites reaches a new high

January 29, 2008

UK Internet traffic to newspaper websites reached its highest level in over two years last week off the back of a number of big news stories. For the week ending 26 January 2008, 1.48% of all UK Internet visits went... Continue reading...

Robin Goad

Research Director, Hitwise UK.