Crime map website swells Met Police traffic

US giants Google, MSN and Facebook dominate the time spent online by British visitors, according to February figures from UKOM/Nielsen, but the most gains were made by the Metropolitan Police, which experienced a 226% increase in traffic.

Metropolitan Police: visitor numbers swell
Metropolitan Police: visitor numbers swell

The number of unique viewers to the Met's website increased by 226%, month on month, following the launch of a new website that enables users to track crime by postcode.

For the bulk of the remaining sites, most traffic was down compared to January, as February is a shorter month.

Search is king, with Google accruing the most unique users, charting more than 33 million unique views in February, followed by MSN/Bing with 26 million. Yahoo is in fourth place with 20 million while Ask takes 12th place.

Time spent on social media sites continues to grow. Facebook is the third most visited site in the UK. Other sites that have a social media aspect also chart highly, with YouTube in sixth position, Blogger in 13th place, Skype in 22nd, and Twitter in at 26th.

The BBC is the UK's only top 10 entry and the highest placed news-led site. The Mail is the largest newspaper site at 14th, followed by Sky at 15th, Guardian.co.uk at 31st and The Telegraph at 39th.

Ecommerce sites continue to rate strongly, with Amazon at eighth place, eBay at ninth, Apple at 11th, Tesco at 17th, and Argos at 18th.

Groupon grew 16% and took 38th place.

Interestingly, music streaming site Vevo has grown 14% despite being its main site yet to launch in the UK.

Blogging site Wordpress also grew 8%, as did software provider Adobe, on the back of a new Flash upgrade.

Big fallers include John Lewis, 32% down compared to January, when customers flocked to the sales. Boots is down 28% and Expedia is down 24%, as travel continues to be hit by the dire economic climate.

 

UKOM/Nielsen Top 100 online brands - Feb 2011
Rank Brand Unique UK visitors (000s) Feb 2011 Unique UK visitors (000s) Jan 2011 Month on month change
1 Google 33,461 34,093 -2%
2 MSN/WindowsLive/Bing 26,186 27,625 -5%
3 Facebook 25,369 25,920 -2%
4 Yahoo! 20,206 21,136 -4%
5 BBC 20,092 20,153 0%
6 YouTube 18,025 17,880 1%
7 Microsoft 17,464 18,610 -6%
8 Amazon 16,846 17,986 -6%
9 eBay 16,498 17,098 -4%
10 Wikipedia 14,258 15,761 -10%
11 Apple 11,629 12,272 -5%
12 Ask Search Network 9,670 10,182 -5%
13 Blogger 8,062 8,193 -2%
14 Associated Newspapers 7,840 8,390 -7%
15 Sky Portal 7,363 8,267 -11%
16 AOL Media Network 7,337 7,412 -1%
17 Tesco 7,167 8,065 -11%
18 Argos 6,902 8,515 -19%
19 PayPal 6,351 6,931 -8%
20 Groupon 6,244 5,398 16%
21 Glam Media 6,242 6,810 -8%
22 Skype 5,919 5,962 -1%
23 Directgov 5,727 6,024 -5%
24 Money Saving Expert 5,461 5,927 -8%
25 Virgin Media 5,232 5,918 -12%
26 About.com 5,175 6,084 -15%
27 The National Lottery 4,942 5,890 -16%
28 eHow 4,847 4,903 -1%
29 NetShelter Technology Media Network 4,840 5,018 -4%
30 BT 4,762 5,099 -7%
31 Guardian.co.uk 4,493 4,929 -9%
32 NHS 4,462 5,025 -11%
33 ITV.com 4,437 4,715 -6%
34 Fox Interactive Media 4,421 4,941 -11%
35 WikiAnswers 4,344 4,819 -10%
36 Twitter.com 4,315 4,643 -7%
37 IMDb - Internet Movie Database 4,222 4,666 -10%
38 VEVO 4,221 3,694 14%
39 Telegraph 4,204 4,299 -2%
40 Shopzilla.com Network 4,163 4,122 1%
41 YELL.com 4,153 4,391 -5%
42 News Corp. Newspapers 4,128 5,040 -18%
43 Orange 4,029 4,494 -10%
44 WordPress.com 3,999 3,709 8%
45 Lloyds TSB 3,975 4,440 -10%
46 Zynga 3,816 3,930 -3%
47 Adobe 3,792 3,508 8%
48 Marks & Spencer 3,750 3,886 -3%
49 Channel 4 3,724 3,892 -4%
50 Play.com 3,640 4,244 -14%
51 TripAdvisor 3,594 4,063 -12%
52 ASDA 3,565 4,313 -17%
53 Gumtree 3,435 3,289 4%
54 NatWest 3,403 3,507 -3%
55 O2 3,310 3,428 -3%
56 IPC Media Network 3,270 3,510 -7%
57 Rightmove 3,214 3,599 -11%
58 Barclays 3,135 3,435 -9%
59 LinkedIn 3,131 3,151 -1%
60 Halifax 3,097 3,468 -11%
61 Royal Mail 3,069 3,621 -15%
62 National Rail 3,052 2,750 11%
63 Nectar 2,978 2,712 10%
64 Metropolitan Police 2,955 907 226%
65 MoneySupermarket.com 2,910 3,451 -16%
66 Gorilla Nation Websites 2,863 2,942 -3%
67 The AA 2,816 2,881 -2%
68 HSBC 2,771 3,060 -9%
69 Real Network 2,710 3,331 -19%
70 John Lewis 2,695 3,954 -32%
71 TalkTalk 2,682 3,205 -16%
72 Vodafone 2,678 2,763 -3%
73 CNET 2,647 2,750 -4%
74 Priceline Network 2,585 2,627 -2%
75 BBC Worldwide 2,564 2,777 -8%
76 Boots 2,532 3,525 -28%
77 Banco Santander 2,480 2,795 -11%
78 Mozilla 2,450 2,746 -11%
79 Next 2,411 2,950 -18%
80 best-price.com 2,399 2,243 7%
81 Trader Media Group 2,380 2,621 -9%
82 Sainsburys 2,301 2,971 -23%
83 Disney Online 2,299 2,527 -9%
84 Expedia 2,254 2,978 -24%
85 WildTangent Network 2,253 2,269 -1%
86 The Digital Property Group 2,230 2,440 -9%
87 HM Revenue & Customs 2,210 3,325 -34%
88 Hachette Filipacchi UK Network 2,195 2,471 -11%
89 Newsquest Local Media 2,184 2,178 0%
90 easyJet 2,181 2,524 -14%
91 PartyCasino.com 2,181 1,908 14%
92 HM Dept. for Work & Pensions 2,158 2,011 7%
93 B&Q 2,154 2,326 -7%
94 Peeplo 2,150 2,157 0%
95 RBS - The Royal Bank of Scotland 2,143 2,473 -13%
96 Picasa 2,138 2,297 -7%
97 Trinity Mirror Nationals 2,132 2,533 -16%
98 Nationwide 2,103 2,216 -5%
99 SupaPrice.co.uk 2,214 1,958 13%
100 Northcliffe Newspapers Group 2,200 1,807 22%

UKOM/Nielsen figures measure unique UK visitors from home and work computers.

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