Google ‘accounts for one third of UK internet activity’

A custom category consisting of the 100 most visited web properties in the UK that are owned by Google, accounted for 36.55% of upstream traffic to all categories of websites in the UK during March 2008, up from 30.19% in March 2007.

Google trademark changes will have a big impact in the UK 

From May 5 2008, Google is changing its trademark protection rules so that non-trademark owners will be able to bid on trademarked terms within Google's Adwords system in the UK. This means that non-trademark owners will be able to place paid search ads in Google's UK search results pages when people search for trademarked brand names and other terms.

For example, UK Internet users currently searching for 'tesco' on Google will not see paid search entries from Tesco's competitors, but from May 5 this will no longer be the case. With branded search having grown by 30% over the last two years, Google's new rules are likely to have a significant impact on brand managers and search marketing professionals in the UK.

"Given Google's large market share this change will have a real impact on the search marketing industry in the UK," commented Robin Goad, Director of Research for Hitwise UK. "Our research shows that 91.8% of people searching for a brand in the UK end up on the brand owners' websites, whereas in the USA - where Google has never protected trademarked terms - the figure is just 84.2%.

“The main reason for this gap is that a company in the USA can bid on a competitor's brand term, and of course many do. We predict that when the changes come into effect, brand owners will have to compete more aggressively to protect their brands online in the UK".

Video, blogging, and image search boost Google's market share in the UK

The most visited Google property in the UK is www.google.co.uk and, with a market share of 7.77% of all UK Internet visits in March, it was also the most visited website in the UK last month. www.google.co.uk was also the website that sent most traffic to other websites during March, accounting for 27.48% of upstream traffic to all categories. This was followed by www.google.com , which had a market share of 1.70% and accounted for 4.43% of all upstream traffic in March.

Video sharing website YouTube (www.youtube.com ), which Google purchased in 2006, is the third most visited Google property, accounting for 1.31% of all UK Internet visits in March. The UK version of the site, (uk.youtube.com) was the sixth most visited Google property, accounting for 0.30% of UK Internet visits in March.

The popularity of 'web 2.0' applications is also highlighted by Blogger (www.blogger.com), the online blog publishing platform that Google purchased in 2003, which is the seventh most popular Google property and the number one website in Hitwise's Lifestyle - Blogs category.

Google's webmail service, Gmail ( www.gmail.com), is the fifth most popular Google property, accounting for 0.37% of UK Internet visits in March, and 0.98% of upstream traffic to other websites.

Google is also benefiting from other areas of internet search that are being driven by the growth of so called 'universal search', the process of integrating video, image, news and other content in traditional search results.

The fourth most visited Google property is Google Image UK (images.google.co.uk), which accounted for 0.58% of UK Internet visits in March. However, the site is even more important as a source of traffic to others sites, accounting for 1.27% of all upstream traffic sent to other sites in March, making it the third most important Google property in terms of sending traffic to other sites.

Other Google search sites in the top 10 include Google Maps (maps.google.co.uk, #8) and Google News UK (news.google.co.uk, #10).

Source: www.hitwise.com.