UK Video Site Traffic Rises Almost 200%

The popularity of online video has surged in the UK over the last year. According to Hitwise, an Internet monitoring company, between February 2007 andFebruary 2008, visits to the 25 top-rated video sites rose by a staggering 178%. That means video sites accounted for over 2% of all UK Internet visits last month.   YouTube was by far the most popular, with its US and UK sites accounting for 69.31% of all UK video site visits. Research director Robin Goad said,   “One ofthe key reasons for YouTube’s success is the strength of its brand. The fourth and fifth most popular search terms in the UK during February were ‘youtube’ and ‘youtube’.”   The BBC iPlayer was the third most popular, followed by MySpace TV.   According toGoad, video search is also on the increase.   “One in every 40 searches in the UK during February 2008 resulted in a visit to a video site, up from one in every 117 a year before. Nearlyone-third of all traffic to the top 25 video sites in the UK comes from search engines, and the range and variety of videos that people are searching for continues to increase.”