I’m addicted to Alexa stats, which show every website’s worldwide ranking (and is quite a useful way of judging a site’s legitimacy) and now I’m overexcited as MoneySaver KJF has sent me the link to the stats I’ve been waiting for.
Finally it seems Alexa.com (part of Amazon), has a list of the 100 most visited sites by UK web surfers. To be honest I’m a bit gobsmacked that this site has made it – my guess from the rankings would’ve been that it was 150th – 200th but…. Way hey!!!
So I thought I’d quickly give you a tour through the list. The top end is dominated by the big hardcore web tools sites – search engines, online email home pages, networking sites and auctions.
1. Google UK
2. Yahoo!
3. EBay UK
4. Google
5. Microsoft Network (MSN)
6. BBC Newsline Ticker
7. Myspace
8. Windows Live
9. YouTube
10. Wikipedia
Other interesting high rankers
21. Rightmove This huge ranking shows that viewing and choosing property has really moved full-time into the online world.
26. Guardian Unlimited Massive leader of the UK’s papers. The Guardian’s early adopter media strategy seems to have worked; I suspect because its website has always been an entity in its own right rather than just an adjunct of the paper.
33. Argos The highest ranked ‘bricks and clicks’ company out there – then again as the catalogue sales model is ideally suited to the online world it was always likely to do well.
45. Tesco The only surprise here for me is that Argos ranks higher! Though I bet Argos wishes it sold as much…
66.Lastminute.com The best known UK-founded e-retailer – many millions were pumped into its marketing in the early days and the brand stuck. It seems the huge money gained from its dodgy-performing flotation did manage to push it hard enough to start a decent business and keep the clicks coming.
69. TradeDoubler This is one of those background sites many won’t have heard of. Yet its role in UK web commerce for smaller sites is huge. This is where many go to get ‘affiliated links’ i.e. paid click-throughs to product providers – so you can monetarise a site – no wonder so many visit it.
79. The Official National Lottery Web Site So it seems the lottery really has moved online… to be this high up substantial numbers of people are checking and buying this way.
91. Money Saving Expert It’s amazing to be up here with the big boys. I started the site in Feb 2003 on my own and the growth’s been amazing; especially when you contrast it to number 66 on the list – this site cost me £100 to set up and has developed without any big bucks being spent (as you can probably tell). I hope it doesn’t sound conceited, but I think it shows if you do your work, do the research, and provide unique content you can make the web work read more about MSE
96. British Airways To be honest I only put it in because it’s shocking to see that MoneySavingExpert.com is bigger!
That’s it. Huge thanks to all the users of the site for helping it be so successful – I hope regulars (and others) share in the pride of getting this pro-consumer site up there with all the commercial big sites. Now I’d better stop writing this blog and go do some more MoneySaving research (I’m working through Premium Bonds at the moment, fascinating stuff when you really crunch the numbers, should be published in the next day or so).
PS, nearly forgot, if you want to see the list yourself (remember it changes so positions move) then go to Alexa GB ranking
