US visitors accounted for 54% of the growth in traffic to UK news websites in the year to August, with referrals from the Drudge Report bringing more than 10% of US visitors, according to new data. The figures, from Hitwise, show that this growth acts in stark contrast to the UK itself, which saw an […]
US visitors accounted for 54% of the growth in traffic to UK news websites in the year to August, with referrals from the Drudge Report bringing more than 10% of US visitors, according to new data. The figures, from Hitwise, show that this growth acts in stark contrast to the UK itself, which saw an 8% growth in visits to homegrown news sites. Hitwise found that BBC News is the 21st most visited News and Media website in US during August, while the Daily Mail was 47th and the BBC homepage 65th.
Other British sites in the US News and Media top 200 last month included: the Telegraph (71st), the FT (115th), The Sun (117th), Times Online (131st) and the Guardian (134th).
The growth of British news sites is somewhat slower in Australia, but then they are starting from a larger base; BBC News ranked 13th in the Australian News and Media category last month, for example, while the corporation’s homepage was 18th, Hitwise reports.
Traffic sources
The news aggregator Drudge Report is currently the second biggest source of US traffic for UK-based news sites, accounting for 10.6% of visits during August.
The Drudge report was a ahead of Google News, which ranked third with 5.3%, but behind Google Search (13.5%). Email was also a key traffic source for British news websites in the US, with Yahoo! Mail (2.5%), Gmail (1.6%) and Hotmail (1.4%) all appearing in the top 10.
Over a quarter of visitors come from California, while New York State is the second biggest contributor, accounting for 6.6% of visitors.
In terms of lifestyle, Hitwsie found that wealthy Americans (households earning in excess of $150,000) are the most likely to visit British news websites, bu the least affluent (households earning less than $30,000) are the second most likely.
Read the Hitwise blog here.
