UKOM Data Report: January 2010

Google was the most visited website in the UK in January, according to the first data release from online measurement company UKOM.

The UKOM figures, now available on MediaTel’s new online database, show comprehensive traffic data for over 10,000 sites, including unique audience, active reach and gender profile.

Google reported a unique audience of over 33 million, reaching 87% of the UK’s internet users.

The top ten sites feature a familiar line-up of homepages of the web’s biggest brands, including MSN, eBay and Facebook.

Google is also top of the search sites, with Ask.com in third place and Yahoo! in fourth, while Microsoft’s Bing is fifth.

While social networking and blogging has grabbed the online industry’s attention over the last twelve months, Facebook is the only site to feature in the top twenty, with the highly publicised Twitter coming in at 73. Bebo, once the leader in social networking, has an audience of 2 million and an active reach of 5%, compared to Facebook’s 62%.

Another aspect of the online world in the spotlight, video streaming, only features twice in the recently published top one hundred. It’s little surprise that YouTube is the most visited video site in the UK, coming in as the tenth most popular website overall, with a unique audience of nearly 17 million. With significantly less users is the BBC iPlayer with 7 million and an active reach of 18%.

The other national broadcaster’s catch-up services didn’t fair so well, with 4oD and ITV Player gaining a reach of 4% and 3.5% respectively. With SeeSaw’s much publicised launch it will be interesting to see what impact the new online TV service will have on online consumers’ behaviour in the coming months.

BBC News was the most visited online destination for news and current affairs, with 11 million people accessing the site over January. Five national newspapers appear in the top ten, with Telegraph.co.uk securing an audience of 5.6 million people, followed closely by Mail Online and Guardian.co.uk, both reporting an active reach of 14%.

The UKOM data used to create this report can be found in the online database.