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HITWISE UK: SEARCH UPDATE

eBay, Bebo and Argos top UK Search Terms in 2006

London, 29^th January 2007

Hitwise, the leader in online competitive intelligence, today announces the top search terms for 2006 in the UK. These search terms represent a non-aggregated look at the most popular UK queries that send traffic to specific categories of websites across all major search engines. The tables below are based on a 52 week average of industry search terms from 2006 for the following Hitwise categories: All UK Categories overall, Entertainment - Movies, Entertainment – Television and Sport - Football.

“The highest volume search terms across the web continue to be brand searches, highlighting that consumers are using search engines to navigate the web,” commented Heather Hopkins, VP of Research for Hitwise UK. “In both the UK and the US, we found that the highest volume search terms in 2006 were for brands, with consumers typing in the name of the site they hope to reach into the search engine. The biggest difference between the US and the UK in 2006 was MySpace. MySpace related searches made up five of the top ten search terms across all categories in the US, whilst the highest MySpace term ranked #13 in the UK.”

2006 Top UK Searches
Top UK Search Terms Among All Categories			Top UK Search Terms Among Movies Websites			Top UK Movie Search Terms Among Movies Websites
Rank	Search Term	Share	Rank	Search Term	Share	Rank	Search Term	Share
1	ebay	0.73%	1	imdb	1.76%	1	harry potter	0.43%
2	bebo	0.32%	2	cineworld	1.75%	2	star wars	0.25%
3	argos	0.29%	3	odeon	1.60%	3	spiderman 3	0.15%
4	amazon	0.24%	4	vue cinema	0.94%	4	angry kid	0.13%
5	easyjet	0.16%	5	vue	0.85%	5	brokeback mountain	0.11%
6	bbc	0.15%	6	vue cinemas	0.82%	6	casino royale	0.10%
7	autotrader	0.15%	7	odeon cinema	0.55%	7	scary movie 4	0.09%
8	tesco	0.14%	8	uci	0.44%	8	superman returns	0.09%
9	ebay uk	0.13%	9	showcase cinema	0.44%	9	x men 3	0.08%
10	cbbc	0.13%	10	odeon cinemas	0.43%	10	high school musical	0.08%
Note: rankings based on a 52 week average industry search term report. The search terms sending traffic to the Adult category have been excluded from the sample. Data is based from sample of 8.43 million UKinternet users.
Source: Hitwise UK

2006 Top UK Searches
Top UK Search Terms Among Television Category Websites			Top UK Television Show Search Terms Among Television Category			Top UK Football Club Search Terms Among Sports Category Websites
Rank	Search Term	Share	Rank	Search Term	Share	Rank	Search Term	Share
1	cbbc	3.31%	1	big brother	2.21%	1	liverpool fc	0.40%
2	big brother	2.21%	2	eastenders	1.06%	2	arsenal	0.32%
3	cbeebies	2.19%	3	neighbours	0.61%	3	manchester united	0.32%
4	bbc weather	2.14%	4	lost	0.54%	4	man utd	0.19%
5	weather	1.52%	5	doctor who	0.46%	5	chelsea fc	0.19%
6	eastenders	1.06%	6	deal or no deal	0.41%	6	leeds united	0.17%
7	channel 4	0.68%	7	hollyoaks	0.25%	7	chelsea	1.43%
8	sky sports	0.68%	8	coronation street	0.23%	8	liverpool football club	0.14%
9	neighbours	0.61%	9	this morning	0.20%	9	nufc	0.14%
10	qvc	0.61%	10	x factor	0.19%	10	liverpool	0.13%
Note: rankings based on a 52 week average industry search term report. The search terms sending traffic to the Adult category have been excluded from the sample. Data is taken from a sample of 8.43 million UK internet users.
Source: Hitwise UK

About Hitwise

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,200 global clients with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise’s patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search, and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into our easy to use, web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement, and report on a range of online marketing programs.

Hitwise is a privately held company headquartered in New York City and operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com

For up to date analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence Analyst Weblogs at weblogs.hitwise.com.

For media enquiries, please contact:

Jannie Cahill
jannie.cahill@hitwise.com

Tel: 020 7378 3619