ROBBIE WILLIAMS TOPS ONLINE CHART

London, 10^th November 2005
Fans desperate to get hold of advance Robbie Williams tickets have catapulted his newly launched site to the top of the Music – Bands and Artists chart, reports Hitwise - the leading online competitive intelligence service.

Traffic to shop.robbiewilliams.com up 1000% since launch

Paying subscribers of Robbie William’s fan club - the “Inner Sanctum” - were able to buy advance tickets for the September 2006 dates yesterday, before tickets go on general sale on Saturday 19^th November. However, demand for the site (shop.robbiewilliams.com) was so heavy that it could not  cope with the heavy volume of traffic, with many members unable to complete their orders. Traffic to the site tripled from the previous day and is currently the top Music – Bands and Artists website with 27% share of visits to the category (a 1000% increase since its launch), ahead of Robbie Williams’ official website (www.robbiewilliams.com), which currently has a 22% share of visits.

Getmetickets.com top site receiving traffic from ticket searches

Before the tour was confirmed, many ticketing agencies were selling unofficial tickets, with some online agencies selling tickets for up to £200 for the wrong dates and cities Williams is not playing. However these sites are now claiming customers were clearly warned the dates were provisional and subject to change.

The top site receiving traffic from the search term “robbie williams tickets” for the 4 weeks ending 5^th November 2005 was www.getmetickets.com, a site previously prosecuted for selling Cliff Richard tickets with a face value of £40 for £323.

Searches on Robbie Williams increase more than five times

Since the launch of his critically acclaimed album “Intensive Care”, which went to number 1 in the charts and sold 383,000 copies in its first week, searches on Robbie Williams have soared, increasing more than five times since the start of the year. However, six of the top 10 most popular search terms for Robbie currently relate to his upcoming tour: “Robbie Williams tickets”, “Robbie Williams tour dates”, “Robbie Williams concert ticket”, “Robbie Williams concert”, “Robbie Williams concerts” and “Robbie Williams tour”.

Volume of searches on ‘robbie williams’, January – November 2005

Visits to shop.robbiewilliams.com, October – November 2005

Domains receiving traffic from the term ‘robbie williams tickets’, 4 weeks ending 5/11/05

About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Each day, Hitwise measures how more than 25 million internet users interact with over 500,000 websites across 160 industry categories.

By measuring more people, more websites, more often, Hitwise provides marketers with timely and actionable marketing insights on how their online presence compares to competitive websites.  Companies use this information to maximize the return on their online investment, in efforts such as affiliate programs, search marketing, online advertising, content development and lead generation.

Hitwise collects internet usage information via a combination of ISP data partnerships and opt-in panels, and complies with local and international privacy legislation as audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Founded in 1997, Hitwise is a privately held company, headquartered in New York City and operates in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. 

More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.co.uk

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

For media enquiries, please contact:

Jannie Cahill
jannie.cahill@hitwise.com

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