Two weeks ago, Google News fell behind Digg.com in share of UK visits to News and Media websites. Yahoo! News UK & Ireland ranks at #4, Digg.com at #6 and Google News UK at #7 among News and Media websites. However, looking at website visits alone tells only half the story. Google News UK refered five times more traffic to News and Media websites than Yahoo! UK & Ireland News. The following chart shows the share of visits that News and Media websites receive from Google News UK, Yahoo! UK & Ireland News and Digg.com.

Last week, 64% of visits to Google News came from the Google search engine (combined .com and .co.uk) with searches for Madeleine McCann, American Idol, Badminton Horse Trials, Angelina and Brad, WWE and football clubs accounting for largest volume of traffic.

Google's footprint among News and Media websites is larger than its rank would suggest because most visitors leave Google News to go to another news provider. Last week, BBC News was the top recipient of traffic, getting 3.6% of Google News’ traffic, followed by 2.0% to Guardian Unlimited, 2.0% to Times Online, 1.4% to Daily Mail and 1.0% to Sky News.

28% of visits from Google News UK went to Print Media websites, 7% to Sports, 6% to Television and 4% to Business Information.

Heather Hopkins

Heather Hopkins is VP of Research for Hitwise UK. This piece was first posted on Hitwise Analyst blog here.