A while ago we highlighted how Google News UK picks up more traffic from searches for celebrities than any other type of news. Last week was a bumper week for celebrity news stories (unfortunately for sad reasons in many cases), and Google News UK was a top recipient for many of the most popular terms. The site was the second biggest recipient of UK searches for ‘patrick swayze’ and ‘kanye west’ (picking up 8.25% and 8.26% of traffic respectively), third for ‘katie price’ (9.29%) and fourth for ‘keith floyd’ (5.28%).
As a result, last week was Google News UK’s busiest ever, with Internet visits increasing 71% and the site ranking as the 28th most popular overall (up from 46th the previous week).

For more information on the UK online news market, check out our recent News and Media webinar. Presented by Hitwise account manager Robert Redman, and featuring a guest contribution from the BBC’s Future Media Controller for Journalism, Nic Newman, talking about the impact of social media on journalism, you can listen to a recording here.
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