16 October 2007
According to new research from Hitwise, for the first time in two years, the search term ‘rugby’ has beaten ‘football’ in UK Internet searches, following the England rugby team’s semi-final victory over France this weekend.
Since the World Cup started at the beginning of September there has been a six-fold increase in searches for ‘rugby’, and in the week run up to the England v France semi-final there was a 10% increase in searches for rugby than football.
The homepage of the official Rugby World Cup received 44% of all traffic from the search term ‘rugby’ last week, with the second most popular website being Planet Rugby. Planet Rugby has seen its market share of all visits increase by 165% since the beginning of the World Cup in September, receiving 11% of all visits from the search term ‘rugby’.
Jonny Wilkinson has proved to be the most searched for star, with a 250% increase in searches for the key player. Robin Goad, Research Director of Hitwise UK commented:
Wilkinson’s appeal with female fans is clear: the proportion of female visitors to Rugby sites has increased from 41% before the world cup to 44% during the last 4 weeks, while the terms ‘jonny wilkinson pictures’, ‘jonny wilkinson topless’ and ‘jonny wilkinson girlfriend’ all appear in the top 10 searches containing the words ‘jonny wilkinson’.
Despite the massive growth in searches for ‘rugby’ as a result of the World Cup, overall football remains the more popular sport in the UK.
Last week there were over eight times as many UK Internet visits to Football sites compared with Rugby sites, despite the World Cup boost
commented Goad,
The loyalty of football fans at the club level ensures it remains the most popular sport in the UK. Three of the top five football sites in the UK are club homepages, while the Rugby category is skewed in favour of international sites, which are more prone to fluctuations based on seasonal factors and the success of the UK national teams.
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