Social networking attracts more traffic than search engines

Social networking sites attracted more internet traffic than search engines in May, according to Experian Hitwise’s anlaysis of UK usage patterns.

Social networking sites attracted more internet traffic than search engines in May, according to Experian Hitwise’s anlaysis of UK usage patterns.
 
Social networks accounted for 11.88% of UK internet visits, slightly ahead of search engines which racked up 11.33% of visits. Experian said that “May was the first ever month that social networks have been more popular than search engines in the UK.”
 
Facebook is the most popular social networking site, accounting for 55% of all traffic in that category. YouTube is the next most popular with 16%. Twitter however only accounts for 2% of social networking traffic.
 
Google continues to dominate the search sector – google.co.uk accounted for 88% of search with google,com taking 4%. Microsoft’s Bing.com had 3% of the total search engine traffic.
 
In terms of total traffic, Google UK was the most visited website in the UK during May, accounting for 9% of all visits. Facebook accounted for 7%.