Top 10 Online properties for October

Google was the most visited property in October, with 29.1 million unique visitors age 15 or older, and reaching 90 percent of the total U.K. Internet audience. Google was followed by Microsoft Sites, which attracted 27.4 million unique visitors, an 85 percent reach. Wikipedia continued to be the fastest growing property in the top ten most visited properties in October, increasing by seven percent to attract its highest ever U.K. audience of 14.2 million unique visitors.

The U.K.’s two largest online retail properties, eBay and Amazon Sites, both enjoyed increased traffic. eBay grew four percent to 22.2 million unique visitors, with Amazon Sites increasing five percent to 14.3 million.

* Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs

Ten Fastest Growing Properties for October

Six of the ten fastest growing properties were online retail sites, with five of these being multi-channel retailers. Growth to multi-channel retail sites was led by Woolworths Group plc, which was the fastest growing property in the U.K. in October, increasing 54 percent to 2.9 million unique visitors. It was joined by another big name high street store, Boots plc, which grew 44 percent to 2.6 million unique visitors. There were also gains for Sony Online, which grew 22 percent to 3.4 million unique visitors, Dixons Stores Group, up 19 percent to 5.3 million, and HMV, up 15 percent to nearly 4 million unique visitors.

The lone pure play online retailer in the fastest growing list was Play.com sites, which was also the largest of the U.K.’s top ten fastest growing properties.  The property enjoyed a 34 percent growth to reach 6.7 million unique visitors in October

“We would expect to see an upward trend in traffic to online retail sites in the U.K. in October,” said Bob Ivins, EVP of European markets for comScore. “In a survey conducted by comScore in the last week of October, 48 percent of U.K. respondents said they had already begun shopping for Christmas. What is perhaps more notable is the rate of this growth. Multi-channel high-street stores like Woolworths and Boots experienced significant increases and if this trend continues we should see very strong online sales for high-street stores this Christmas.”

Outside of the retail category, there was notable growth for Royal Mail Group. Traffic to the site grew 23 percent to 4.4 million unique visitors, driven in large part by the nation-wide mail worker strikes that took place at the beginning of the month. Reed Elsevier Group was the fourth fastest growing property in the U.K., increasing total traffic 25 percent to 2.6 million unique visitors. Much of this growth can be attributed to the seasonal trend of increased traffic to career services and job search sites in October, which saw Reed Elsevier Group owned site, Totaljobs.com, increase 28 percent over the course of the month.

* Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs

Source: www.comscore.com