Christmas is a time for giving, and whilst the giving of presents will occupy the minds of most of us as the festive season approaches, Christmas is also a key time for giving to charities.

Charitable trends have been changing online in the last three years, with searches for charity gift donations dropping by almost a third since 2008. Branded searches for the top charities have rocketed however, with branded searches doubling year on year over Christmas 2009.

Last year the most popular charities searched for online over the Christmas period were Shelter, Help for Heroes, Mind, Great Ormond Street and the Charities Aid Foundation.
The Armed Forces charity Help for Heroes in particular has been riding a wave of popularity since it was brought into the mainstream by the X-Factor back in 2008. This year the charity has gone from strength to strength, witnessing its highest ever peak in traffic on the week ending 18 September 2010, when the Help for Heroes concert at Twickenham was taking place.

During that week, there were 130% more visits to the Help for Heroes website than there were in the week of the X-Factor charity single.
Of course at this time of year the other charity focus is around the Poppy Appeal and Remembrance Sunday.

I wrote about the Poppy Appeal a few years ago but it is interesting to see how the charity has grown online. Poppy.org was the fourth most visited charity site last week, and saw a 400% increase in visits to the site from the previous week. Compared to the same week last year, Poppy.org has increased traffic to its site by 11%, showing continued growth and support for the charity.
Follow Hitwise on Twitter.