Facebook increases UK share

Facebook now accounts for one in every seven internet page views (14.5%) in the UK, according to new research by Experian Hitwise.

Robin Goad, director of research for Experian Hitwise in the UK, said: “During September Facebook was the second most visited website in the UK after Google UK, but because users view a much larger number of pages per visit, Facebook is the clear leader in terms of page views.  Facebook received more page views than Google UK, eBay UK and YouTube combined [in September].”

UK internet visits to Facebook have increased by a substantial 86.1% over the last 12 months and have more than doubled over the last 14 months.

During September, Facebook accounted for almost half of all social networking visits in the UK.

“Although it has fallen somewhat off the media radar in favour of Twitter recently, Facebook remains far and away the most popular social networking website in the UK,” Goad said.  “One significant factor is that the site’s growth in the UK doesn’t yet show any signs of slowing.

“A key measure of success for any social network is average session time; as we have seen with sites such as Friends Reunited and MySpace, when average session times begins to drop off visitor numbers soon follow.  Facebook has yet to experience this problem: Hitwise monitoring data shows that its average visit times increased from 19 minutes 59 seconds in September 2008 to 26 minutes 14 seconds during September 2009.”

Facebook also accounts for almost 60% of all social networking traffic in the US, according to Hitwise.

The popular site increased its US audience share by an impressive 194% year on year in September, while its competitor MySpace slumped to just 30% of overall social network visits, which is less than half of the 67% share it claimed in 2008.

Facebook also enjoyed US audience growth of 3% month on month from August to September, compared to MySpace’s 3% drop over the same period.