The 10 fastest moving search terms in the UK last week were:
1. google chrome
2. man city
3. bestival
4. environment agency
5. chrome
6. manchester city
7. burghley horse trials
8. nsandi
9. ns&i
10. setanta sports
The appearance of the two Google Chrome related terms in the top 5 is not a huge surprise given the huge amount of web chatter and mainstream media coverage surrounding the launch of the search giant’s new browser. As we pointed out last week, UK Internet traffic to the Chrome homepage shot up on the day of release, although it actually peaked the following day (September 3rd). However, the average time spend on the site continued increasing until the 5th, when it reached 2 minutes and 47 seconds. A higher average time spend implies more people downloading the application, and it seems likely many of the people downloading the app on the 5th were people who’d already visited earlier in the week. On the 3rd, 94% of the site’s visitors were new compared with 81% on the 5th.
The purchase of Manchester City Football Club by Abu Dhabi United Group last week sent shock waves through the football world. It also drove a significant amount of search traffic, as illustrated by the appearance of both ‘man city’ and ‘manchester city’ in this week’s top 10. Manchester City was the sixth most visited Premier League club online last week. As the chart below illustrates, the news (combined, no doubt, with the Berbatov transfer drama) also had an impact on traffic to Manchester United’s website, which overtook Liverpool’s for the firs time since United won the Champions’ League final in May.

Last week was a busy week for British football, both on an off the pitch. England’s World Cup qualifying matches against Andorra and Croatia are not being shown on terrestrial TV, which has benefitted broadcaster Setanta Sports. The tenth fastest moving search term last week was ‘setanta sports’ and, as the chart below illustrates, traffic to the broadcasters website reached an all time high. Other football related web activity included: a spike in traffic to Newcastle United’s homepage following the departure of manager Kevin Keegan, a significant increase in searches for transfer deadline signings Dimitar Berbatov and Robinho, and a spike in searches for newly manager-less West Ham United.

The only other story to contribute two terms to the top 10 was the success of National Savings and Investments, which recently announced a signifcant increase in deposits. The government owned bank has clearly become more attractive to investors thanks to the credit crunch. Looking at the demographics data for the site, it is evident that the NS&I is much more popular with older investors. As the chart below illustrates, for the 4 weeks ending September 6th, 54% of visitors to www.nsandi.com were aged 55+.

The final interesting, if dismally predictable, story contained in last week’s fast moving search terms is the increase in searches for ‘environment agency’. These were triggered by the floods currently hitting the UK, and have caused and increase in traffic to the government agency’s homepage. As the chart below illustrates, traffic to the Environment Agency’s website more than trebled last week, although it has yet to reach the peaks experienced during last year’s floods.

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