Top Sites in the UK

Just been looking in at the Alexa Top 100 for the UK by traffic rank. The top 10 is dominated by US companies with the BBC flying the flag at #6. (reach/million in brackets)

1. http://www.google.co.uk/ (23,400)
2. http://www.yahoo.com/ (298,000)
3. http://www.ebay.co.uk/ (7,950)
4. http://www.google.com/ (278,000)
5. http://www.msn.com/ (256,000)
6. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ (22,900)
7. http://www.myspace.com/ (37,650)
8. http://www.live.com/ (119,500)
9. http://www.amazon.co.uk/ (3,500)
10. http://www.wikipedia.org/ (47,550)


YouTube continues its remarkable success appearing at #11 and the Myspace wannabe Bebo at #17. Orange is the first real UK brand to appear in the list coming in at #15 with Autotrader next at #22. Guardian Unlimited performs strongly at #25 while the business directory Yell.com appears at #33

There is some evidence of Alexa’s slight geek bias with Digital Point Solutions at #47 The Register at #58 and SourceForge at #60

Microsoft adCenter to Launch in the U.K.

Microsoft adCenter to Launch in the U.K.: "13 August 2006 Microsoft announced today that adCenter will launch in the U.K. this week! For the last couple of months they've been piloting in partnership with a number of U.K. advertisers which they claim has been a huge success. From Tuesday 15th August, Microsoft adCenter will serve 100% of paid search traffic on Microsoft online properties in the U.K., principally MSN Search and Windows Live Search. Paid search traffic on MSN Search will stop being delivered by Yahoo/Overture completely. A couple of inspiring quotes for you: 'We expect Microsoft adCenter to shake up the U.K. search advertising market--people now have a third option from a major online power. We're giving customers improved audience intelligence, increased conversion rates, and great customer service.' Sharon Baylay, General Manager, Microsoft Online Services Group 'Our trial of Microsoft adCenter has been a great success across a number of campaigns. We've seen very good return on investment compared to other search engines. We've also enjoyed an outstanding level of customer service, making the process of uploading and running adCenter campaigns very smooth." Jim Brigden, Managing Director at The Search Works"