Twitter provides a boost to content sites

National Press

Staff

June 24, 2009

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Twitter provides a boost to content sites

LONDON - Twitter is providing a significant traffic boost to content websites, particularly those linked to newspapers, according to a report from Hitwise.

The boon for content websites has come as Twitter traffic has soared in 2009 with Hitwise reporting it has increased 22-fold over the last 12 months.

Last month, Hitwise identified Twitter as the 30th biggest source of traffic for other sites in the UK and said it accounted for one in every 350 visits to a typical website.

More than half of Twitter traffic (56%) is sent to other content-driven online media sites, such as social networks, blogs, and news and entertainment websites with newspapers coming as bit winners. Many newspaper websites have multiple Twitter accounts.

Third-party site Twitpic has also benefitted, becoming the third most popular photo website in the UK behind Flickr and Photobucket.

However, the news was less impressive for online retailers who do not fare so well on Twitter as content providers. Only 9.5% of Twitter's downstream traffic is sent to retailers.

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