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2005 Election update

Tony Blair may well be the most searched for political personality among the leaders of the three major parties but the Liberal Democrats gained a lot of attention online during March, becoming the most searched-for political party earlier this month.

With the announcement of the date for the UK general election expected to be just weeks away and polls indicating that Labour's support is being eroded by the Conservatives, all three leaders are scrambling to capture headlines. For the week ending 19th March 2005, Hitwise data reveal that there were more Internet searches for 'Tony Blair' than for 'Michael Howard' or 'Charles Kennedy'.

Interest in the Liberal Democrats grew rapidly throughout February, overtaking searches for both of the other parties by the week ending 5th March. This surge in popularity for the Liberal Democrats resulted in an increase in traffic to the party's official website (www.libdems.org.uk), which has doubled its traffic and increased its position from #28 to #14 within the Hitwise Politics category over the last month. However, it still lags behind the official websites for the Labour and Conservative parties, which rank at #11 and #5 respectively for the week ending March 12.

Much of the interest in the Liberal Democrats can be attributed to the increased profile of the party in recent weeks, including the party's pre-election conference and the launch of its campaign on 5th March. The party has attracted much interest in their "Axe the Tax" campaign, with over 1 in 5 visits to the Liberal Democrat site for the week ending March 5 leaving to visit their campaign website www.axe-the-tax.org.uk, which aims to replace Council Tax with a fairer system of local taxation based on ability to pay.

News In Brief

Luck of the Irish for Guinness website

St Patrick's Day was a lucky one for Guinness, with its official website finding the proverbial pot of gold in terms of online traffic. The site soared up the charts in the lead-up to St Patrick's Day celebrations on March 17 as UK drinkers prepared for a night of partying to celebrate Ireland's national day.

Guinness.com, which features a St Patrick's Day competition as well as an array of merchandise and information on the history of Guinness, received a boost in traffic as St Patrick's Day approached. In the two week period from Thursday March 3 to Thursday March 17, the site experienced a five-fold increase in market share in the online Food & Beverage - Brands & Manufacturers sector, increasing from 0.48% to 2.76%.

Clickstream data for www.guinness.com in the week ending March 19 shows that the largest proportion of the site's traffic came from Google (21%), with more than 8% of traffic coming from spoof Irish search engine Doogle (www.doogle.org), which features a link to Guinness on its front page. The Guinness Webstore (www.guinness-webstore.com), with its selection of St Patrick's Day apparel and festive gear, was the most popular downstream site from Guinness.com with more than 30% of downstream traffic.

Comic Relief a winner as Fame Academy final goes to air

Comic Relief achieved tremendous online success this month with the culmination of both its Red Nose Day and Fame Academy initiatives on Friday March 12.

The Red Nose Day activities prompted a huge surge in traffic to several key sites, including Comic Relief's official RND '05 website (www.rednoseday.com), the BBC's Red Nose Day site (www.bbc.co.uk/rednoseday) and the Comic Relief website itself (www.comicrelief.com). Rednoseday.com increased its ranking rapidly in the lead up to the day, and the site ultimately achieved a massive market share figure of 14.6% on Friday March 12, becoming the second most popular site in the Hitwise Community sector. The top ranking went to the BBC's Red Nose Day site, which jumped more than 227 places overall with an incredible 20% market share of the Community category.

March 12 also saw the final of Celebrity Fame Academy, the phenomenally popular BBC series which raised money for Comic Relief with its celebrity singing competition. Viewers contributed more than £1.3 million for the charity by registering 8.25 million votes in the weeks leading up Friday's final, and this tremendous show of public support translated into a four-fold increase in traffic to the official Fame Academy site, www.bbc.co.uk/fameacademy. The site held just over 1% of all traffic to the Hitwise Television category on Friday 4th March, and this increased to almost 4% by Thursday 11th March as viewers cast last-minute votes for their favourite celebrities.

The hotly-contested competition was eventually won by Radio 1 DJ Edith Bowman, and Hitwise Search Terms data was able to accurately predict the three Fame Academy finalists in their exact finishing order: 'edith bowman', 'kim medcalfe' and 'adrian edmondson' finished first, second and third respectively and this was mirrored by an analysis of their relative market share in terms of online searches for the week ending March 12.

Fast Mover - Feed Me Better

www.feedmebetter.com


Position on March 15: 2,577
Position on March 20: 222
Positions jumped: 2,355

Jamie Oliver's campaign to introduce healthy food in schools has been heating up this month with the success of his Channel 4 series 'Jamie's School Dinners', and his campaign website Feed Me Better is receiving a lot of attention online.

The site urges visitors to take action to help ban junk food in schools by lobbying their local MPs - and the site's clickstream data proves that its message is having an impact. Almost 10% of downstream traffic from www.feedmebetter.com is going to a site called WriteToThem.com, which enables users to write directly to their local councillors, MPs and assembly members.

Feed Me Better has rocketed in the Hitwise rankings this week following the final episode of Jamie's School Dinners on Wednesday. Daily data for Thursday March 17 show that the site ranked at #2 in the online Food & Beverage sector and at #17 in Education, representing a four-fold increase overall in the space of two days - its pre-show ranking out of all categories was #2,577, which increased to #568 overall on Thursday March 17.

The overwhelming success of Comic Relief's Fame Academy and Red Nose Day initiatives is demonstrated in this month's top 10 search terms for the Community category. Both 'red nose day' and 'comic relief' dominated the top terms this month, with a combined market share of over 3%. Meanwhile, Oxfam's Make Poverty History campaign has also done well over the past four weeks, with the term 'make poverty history' the 9th most searched-for term resulting in traffic to the Community sector.

The craze for charity wristbands is also highlighted in the Community sector search terms for March, with 'wristbands' the seventh most searched-for term. Coloured wristbands have been a hot fashion item in recent weeks, as celebrities and style-setters donned armloads of plastic bands in support of their favourite charities.

COMMUNITY: TOP 10 SEARCH TERMS Based on data for four weeks ending 19th March 2005

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Copyright Hitwise Pty Ltd, March 2005