Social networks receiving more UK internet visits than search engines

During May, social networks accounted for 11.88% of UK internet visits, with search engines accounting for 11.33%, Hitwise UK research director Robin Goad wrote on the Hitwise blog

Facebook accounts for 55% of all UK social networking visits, followed by YouTube in second place and Twitter in third.

However, Facebook’s domination of the social networking market is nowhere near that of Google’s search ubiquity, said Goad.

Together www.google.co.uk and www.google.com accounted for nine in every ten web searches carried out in the UK during May, making Google UK the most visited website in the UK during the month, accounting for 9.29% of all visits, while Facebook was in second place with 7.04%.

Earlier this year, The Nielsen Company revealed that web users across 10 countries spent an average of five and a half hours on social networks in February 2010, up more than two hours from the same time last year.

The US boasted the largest unique social networking audience on average in February, with UK users Users spending an average of five hours and 50 minutes on social networks during the month.