UK Internet Usage Habits Shift
UK internet users turned away from chat rooms, e-commerce sites and entertainment portals during September in favour of news and official government sites, according to web monitoring company, Hitwise.
The latest figures for September reveal the inevitable shift in usage habits of UK users after the terrorist attacks in the US led to an increase in the demand for news and official information.
Chat rooms and e-commerce sites were the first to lose out. The shopping and classifieds category recorded the biggest fall of 22%, followed by the net communities and chat category, which saw an 18% drop off in UK traffic. The entertainment category fell 11% with the sub categories of television and gambling falling by 16% and 15% respectively.
The popularity of Government sites soared during September, with UK traffic rising by 50%. This was due to large numbers of UK users visiting the National Infrastructure Centre online and the FBI website, which climbed over 18,000 and 3,000 places respectively in the Hitwise net rankings table.
The humanitarian category also increased its share of UK traffic by 140% during September.
A recent report by Lemonad also shows that the UK online advertising market has been in decline since the terrorist attacks with the total number of ads on UK sites dropping by 10% since September (see US Attacks Hit UK Online Ad Sales).
Hitwise: 020 7483 9257 www.hitwise.co.uk
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