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Top 10 and Fastest-Growing UK Websites Ranked

The top-ranking and fastest-growing internet properties in the UK for September were Google Sites and Fish4 Sites, respectively, according to the comScore World Metrix audience measurement service.

Google was the most-visited property in September, with 28.6 million unique visitors age 15 or older, reaching 89% of the total UK internet audience; it was followed by Microsoft Sites, which attracted 26.9 million unique visitors, an 83% reach, comScore said.

Wikipedia, the growth of which had leveled off over the summer, was the fastest-growing property in the top 10 in September, increasing 15% to attract its highest-ever UK audience of 13.3 million unique visitors. Wikipedia showed a similar increase a year ago, when it grew 18% to 8.2 million unique visitors between August and September 2006, reflecting students’ return to their studies, according to comScore.

Students’ return to school also gave a boost to Amazon Sites, which grew 3% over the previous month to attract 13.6 million unique visitors in September - reaching 42% of the total UK internet audience.

Fastest-Growing Properties

Fish4 Sites was the fastest-growing property in the UK in September, increasing 34% to 2.9 million unique visitors. This growth can be attributed to the property’s career resources site, Fish4jobs, traffic to which nearly doubled in September, making it the most-visited UK career site in Sept.

Two multichannel retailers appear in the fastest growing list:

• Popular high-street entertainment retail chain HMV’s traffic increased 25% to 3.4 million unique visitors. 
• Traffic to the sites of Arcadia Group, the company responsible for leading high street stores such as Topshop.co.uk and Burton.co.uk, increased 17% to 2.7 million unique visitors.

Two popular European blogging sites, WordPress and Six Apart Sites, also enjoyed traffic growth:

• WordPress increased 25% to 3.8 million unique visitors.
• Six Apart Sites grew 23% to reach 3.5 million unique visitors.

Bob Ivins, EVP of international markets at comScore, observed: “To see traffic mirror what is happening in the general population is another example of how pervasive and engrained the internet is in people’s everyday lives. The start of the school year drove traffic to online retail sites, encyclopedia sites, and career sites.”