UK Internet Traffic To Newspaper Websites Reaches High

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, according to the latest figures from Hitwise.

For the week ending 26 January 2008, 1.48% of all UK internet visits went to websites in Hitwise’s News and Media – Print category, which includes the websites of national, local and international newspapers, as well as print magazines and trade publications.

Business and economic stories captured most of the headlines last week, and interest in these stories was a major contributor to the increase in traffic to newspaper websites, said Hitwise.

“The fact that we saw searches for ‘financial news’ double last week proves that people in the UK are clearly concerned about the economy,” commented Robin Goad, director of research at Hitwise.

The most visited newspaper website in the UK for the week ending 26 January was the Daily Mail (www.dailymail.co.uk), which achieved a market share of 4.97% of UK internet visits to News and Media – Print websites.

It was joined in the top 5 by the Sun ( www.thesun.co.uk; 4.47%), Times Online (www.timesonline.co.uk; 4.31%), Guardian Unlimited ( www.guardian.co.uk; 3.30%), and the Telegraph (www.telegraph.co.uk ; 3.18%).The Sun saw the biggest increase in traffic last week, thanks in part to the hosting of a video that showed pop star Amy Winehouse allegedly taking illegal drugs.

The death of actor Heath Ledger also generated a significant volume of UK Internet traffic for newspapers last week. ‘heath ledger’ was the fifth most popular search term sending UK internet traffic to News and Media – Print websites for the four weeks ending 26 January 2008, and was the highest ranking term that wasn’t also the name of a newspaper or magazine.

The recently published ABCe figures for December 2007 showed that traffic was down for all of the national newspaper websites that month (see National Newspaper Sites Hit By December Dive).

Hitwise: www.hitwise.co.uk