Visits to News and Travel Sites Surge Following Averted Terrorist Plot

As news emerged that a suspected terrorist plot to blow up several aircraft had been foiled by British intelligence, UK holiday makers headed for news and travel sites in their droves to find out how anti-terror measures at airports would impact their travel plans.

Visits to BBC News (news.bbc.co.uk) increased 50% on Thursday 10 August as it became the 9th most visited website in the UK (up from # 14 the previous day), whilst the website for the British Airport Authority (baa.co.uk) became the 8th most visited Travel website and the 64th most visited site, with its visits up 8 fold.

Websites for the UK's two biggest airports, Heathrow and Gatwick, also saw a dramatic increase in visits: www.gatwickairport.com became the 21st most visited Travel site in the UK and www.heathrowairport.com increased more than 200 positions to rank as the 23rd most visited Travel site. Share of visits to Aviation sites increased 79%, with websites for easyJet, Ryanair and British Airways all experiencing rapid growth (48%, 76% and 61% respectively). However, the share of visits to travel agencies was down 19%, indicating that travellers were contacting airlines directly for updates on delays and cancellations. Stranded air travellers also sought alternative routes out of the UK, with visits to Eurostar's site (www.eurostar.com) up 53%.

Visits to news sites were almost on a par with July 7 last year, the day of the London bombings, accounting for a 5.26% share of all internet visits and up 18% from August 9. BBC News, Yahoo! UK News, Google News UK, MSN News UK and Sky News were all popular online destinations. With the terror alert elevated to "critical" in the UK, websites for MI5 (www.mi5.gov.uk) and The Home Office (www.homeoffice.gov.uk) also became popular sources. MI5's website leapt in the daily rankings from #254 to #9 among Government sites and The Home Office site jumped from #75 to #10.

The following report lists the most popular terms typed into a search engine over the 4 weeks ending 12/08/2006 that resulted in traffic to websites classified by Hitwise within the 'Travel' industry. For example, the most popular search term was 'easyjet' representing 0.99% of all search terms that delivered users to websites classified by Hitwise in the 'Travel' industry.

Fast Mover - Girl With a One-Track Mind

girlwithaonetrackmind.blogspot.com


Position for week ending February 18: #347 (of all blog sites)
Position for week ending August 12: #24
Positions jumped: 323

Zoe Margolis, unmasked earlier this month as the anonymous author behind the "Girl With a One-Track Mind" blog, has seen visits to her site increase five-fold week-on-week since being outed by The Sunday Times. The blog-turned-book is the latest in the erotic diary series sparked by Belle de Jour (belledejour-uk.blogspot.com).

Hitwise reveals that visitors to the blog are more likely to be male and between the ages of 25 and 34, whilst Hitwise clickstream data suggests that Margolis' book may well be a best seller: for the week ending August 12, 67% of downstream visits from her blog site went to Amazon UK. The book also went to the top of Amazon's pre-ordered paperbacks chart after it was serialised in The Sunday Times Style section last month.

News In Brief

Bebo Overtakes MySpace in the UK

On the back of Fox Interactive Media's recent announcement that it has signed a multiyear deal to use Google search to direct traffic across its network of internet sites, including MySpace.com, Bebo - MySpace's direct competitor in the UK - has overtaken MySpace for the first time ever in the UK based on weekly visits.

Following the launch of its music service earlier this month, dubbed "Bebo Bands", Bebo surpassed MySpace in weekly market share of UK internet visits to become the most visited social networking site in the UK for the week ending August 5. Bebo had overtaken MySpace in daily visits on two individual days in May, but this marks the first time the site has overtaken MySpace in weekly visits. In the US, however, MySpace continues to be the most visited social networking site.

In April, Hitwise predicted that Bebo would overtake MySpace in share of UK visits at the start of the new school term, as the summer is typically a slow time for the site. The launch of Bebo Bands brought members back to the site and it shot ahead of MySpace ahead of our projection.

Fantasy Football Sites Gain in Advance of New Season

With the World Cup barely behind us, UK football fans have been preparing for the start of the Premiership League in earnest.

Searches for Chelsea and Liverpool's recent Community Shield match soared as fans searched for tickets to the game, whilst fantasy football sites have proved popular ahead of the new season.

Over the 4 weeks ending August 12, share of searches for "fantasy football" have increased more than 50%, and the term has become the #3 search term to include the keyword "football", after only "bbc football" and "football".

The big winners of all the pre-season hype are fantasy football sites, in particular Mail Online Fantasy Football (fantasyleague.mailonline.co.uk), Metro Fantasy Football (fantasyfootball.metro.co.uk) and Yahoo! UK Sports Fantasy Football (uk.premiership.fantasysports.yahoo.com).

Category Spotlight: Sports - Football

This category encompasses all websites related to soccer. The data below is based on All sites » Weekly rankings for the week ending 12/08/2006 » Ranks by 'Visits'.

Local Competitiveness Index 90.3% of traffic to this category was directed at domestic sites.	Traffic Distribution The chart above illustrates the distribution of this category's traffic for the week among sites in various rank ranges.
Top 10 Upstream Categories 1. Computers and Internet 38.4% 2. Sports 33.5% 3. Computers and Internet - Search Engines 20.6% 4. Sports - Football 17.0% 5. Entertainment 13.5% 6. News and Media 8.9% 7. Entertainment - Television 7.3% 8. Computers and Internet - Net Communities and Chat 5.3% 9. Computers and Internet - Email Services 4.6% 10. Shopping and Classifieds 4.5%	Top 10 Downstream Categories 1. Sports 35.9% 2. Computers and Internet 23.8% 3. Sports - Football 21.3% 4. Entertainment 16.4% 5. Shopping and Classifieds 8.9% 6. News and Media 8.8% 7. Computers and Internet - Search Engines 8.3% 8. Computers and Internet - Net Communities and Chat 7.7% 9. Entertainment - Television 6.8% 10. Business and Finance 4.1%

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Copyright Hitwise Pty Ltd, August 2006