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Hitwise Intelligence - Robin Goad - UK

Analyst Weblog

Category Archives: Politics

Online population vote YES to AV

May 05, 2011

Today (Thursday 5 May) polling stations have opened across the UK to decide whether to change the electoral system from first-past-the-post (FPTP) to the alternative vote (AV) system, under which voters rank candidates in order of preference. The majority of... Continue reading...

How the Budget could affect new business start ups

March 22, 2011

Tomorrow Chancellor George Osborne will deliver his first March Budget to outline the government’s spending plans for the next financial year. A lot of the focus of the Budget is likely to be around fuel duty and interest rates, but... Continue reading...

Egypt protests swamp holiday search terms

February 01, 2011

The recent political unrest in Egypt has had a dramatic effect on search term behaviour online and could cause a severe backlash to the Egyptian tourism industry. Protests in Cairo against president Hosni Mubarak and warnings from the Foreign and... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 10:37 AM | (1) | (0)
In Categories Government | Politics | Travel

2010 Online: the year in review

December 21, 2010

I can scarcely believe that a whole year has passed since I was sitting here writing the 2009 review, but 12 months to the day here we are, and it’s been another fascinating year in the digital world. Once again... Continue reading...

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... Continue reading...

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In Categories 2010 General Election | Government | Politics

Cameron's Big Society prompts big traffic spike

July 30, 2010

Last week the Prime Minister set out his vision for the “big society”, the flagship social policy of the Conservative-LibDem coalition government. The initiative aims to take the emphasis of responsibility away from the government and instead empower people to... Continue reading...

Budget 2010: the online response

June 23, 2010

As expected, yesterday’s budget, presented by the Chancellor, George Osborne, gained a huge amount of press coverage. Given the wide range of changes introduced, it is not a surprise to see that many people went online to research both the... Continue reading...

Election traffic: Tories gain at Lib Dems’ expense, but it remains close online

May 04, 2010

The general election is just two days away, and it remains close. The chart below illustrates the weekly market share of visits to the three main political parties’ homepages, with the Conservative regaining the top spot. The Liberal Democrats have... Continue reading...

Bigot-gate and the role of social networks in the election

April 29, 2010

Gordon Brown’s unfortunate gaff yesterday – already inevitably christened ‘Bigot-gate’ – was the big political story yesterday, and probably the second major event of the election (after Nick Clegg’s success in the first leadership debate). Accordng to our daily search... Continue reading...

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In Categories 2010 General Election | Politics | Social networks

Tories back on top following second leadership debate

April 23, 2010

Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats were the big winners online following the first leadership debate last week, and based on our daily data their homepage has been picking up more UK Internet visits than either the Conservatives or Labour... Continue reading...

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In Categories 2010 General Election | Politics

Will Motorway Man swing to the Lib Dems?

April 21, 2010

Earlier in the week I highlighted the impact of the ‘Clegg Effect’ on traffic to the Liberal Democrats' website, and this has also been reflected in the most recent polls. However, the first past the post electoral system that we... Continue reading...

Leadership debate winners: Lib Dems, Sky News, ITV and Twitter

April 19, 2010

Despite the best efforts of an Icelandic volcano to ground all Northern European flights and take (obscure?) the limelight, last week’s leaders’ debate grabbed a lot of media attention. The consensus view is that Nick Clegg came out on top,... Continue reading...

Political blogs in the run up to the election

April 14, 2010

In yesterday’s post about the surge in online voter registration traffic, I mentioned the demographics of visitors to websites within our Politics category. That is a broad grouping that includes part homepages, blogs, government sites and overseas politics pages such... Continue reading...

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In Categories 2010 General Election | Blogs | Politics | Social networks

Online voter registration

April 13, 2010

British citizens flocked to the Internet to register to vote last week following the announcement that the General Election will take place on May 6th. UK Internet searches for the term ‘register to vote’ increased 9-fold between the week ending... Continue reading...

2009 online: the year in review

December 21, 2009

The end of the year presents and excellent opportunity for reflection, and also for lists. Combining the two, I’ve decided to reflect on the last year of online activity in the UK by providing a list of our most popular... Continue reading...

Has the threat of postal strikes harmed eCommerce in the UK?

October 21, 2009

The threat of further postal strikes is one of the hottest political issues of the moment, and this is being reflected in our search data. As the chart below illustrates, searches for a portfolio postal strike related terms were up... 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...

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...

Tweet 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...

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...

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...

Guest post – ‘Click’ review by David Soskin

March 02, 2009

Following the example of my US colleagues, today I’m posting our first ever guest posting on the UK blog. I’d like to introduce David Soskin, Vice Chairman of Cheapflights, loyal Hitwise client for a number of years, and well respected... Continue reading...

“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...

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...

Pre-budget report: tax cuts and petrol prices

November 26, 2008

Given the economic conditions and the various rumours last week, the government’s pre-budget report has received a lot of attention online .Looking at the search data up to last week, you can see from the chart below that searches 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...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 07:30 AM | (1)
In Categories News and Media | Politics | Search | Social networks

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...

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...

Petrol prices searches reach an all time high

May 28, 2008

UK Internet searches for ‘petrol prices’ reached an all time high last week in advance of yesterday’s fuel protests in London and Wales. As the chart below illustrates, searches for the term have been increasing since Christmas, and have shot... Continue reading...

London Mayoral elections update

April 30, 2008

Last week we analyzed UK Internet traffic relating to the London Mayoral elections. With only one day of campaigning left, I wanted to provide the latest data. The chart below illustrates the daily Internet traffic to the three main candidates’... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 11:00 AM | (0)
In Categories Government | Politics | Social networks

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...

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...

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

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...

Act on C02 campaign an environmental success

January 11, 2008

A lot of new years’ resolutions will have included a promise to reduce carbon footprints. Therefore it was a shrewd move by the Department of Transport to choose this time of year to launch Act on CO2. As the chart... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 02:30 PM | (0)
In Categories Environment | Government | Politics | Search

Campbell's age did have an impact on the Lib Dems

October 16, 2007

Unfortunately it seems that the polls, the party, and the public are indeed merciless, and last night Sir Menzies Campbell stood down as leader of the Liberal Democrats. Yesterday there was a seven-fold increase in traffic to the Lib Dem’s... Continue reading...

Tweet Posted by Robin Goad at 02:00 PM | (0)
In Categories Demographics | Politics

Robin Goad

Research Director, Hitwise UK.