Last week we saw the close of the Leveson inquiry after 102 days of hearings and submissions. Since the breaking of the News of the World phone hacking scandal in June 2011 we have been following the proceedings online with mixed interest.

We decided that since the inquiry has now concluded we would have a look at some of the key moments of the inquiry by online search volumes.

Interest diminished in the phone hacking scandal as the Leveson Inquiry dragged on

What you can see is that online interest was at its peak early in the inquiry but has since trailed off quite significantly. The first major event of the proceedings was in July 2011 when the News of the World was shut down by News Corp. What’s more interesting is that the highest peak of UK searches around the Leveson inquiry came at the end of July when Rupert Murdoch was attacked by a protester with a pie.

Since those heady days interest diminished with much smaller peaks in search volumes when James Murdoch resigned as executive chairman of News International in February 2012. More recently in June news that former editor Rebekah Brooks was to be charged for her part in the phone hacking scandal.

Looking at the downstream websites receiving traffic from searches around the Leveson Inquiry you can see that the official Leveson website received almost 22% of search clicks in the last four weeks. There was also a high volume of clicks going to Wikipedia, followed by news websites like the Guardian, BBC and Telegraph.

If you want to find out more about how online behaviours are reflected online through search you can find more information on our website or you can watch one of our webinars through our YouTube channel. You can always follow the latest online trends through our Twitter feed.