Boris ahead on search, says Hitwise

Category: Search

April 24th 08, 08:58

London mayoral candidate Boris Johnson is the subject of more search queries than his rivals Ken Livingston and Brian Paddick, a new report reveals.

Figures from web traffic monitoring service Hitwise indicate that the Conservative nomination has been ahead of his fellow contenders for the majority of the race.

However, the organisation's Robin Goad points out on his blog that "searches do not equal votes", noting that examining how users look for web information about mayoral candidates is nevertheless informative.

Wikipedia is the second most popular destination for news about the candidates, after their official homepages, representing 18 per cent of destinations for Ken Livingstone queries, 19.3 per cent of Brian Paddick queries and 31.6 per cent of Boris Johnson queries.

Meanwhile, Mr Livingstone leads the news and media category with 14 per cent of searches ending there, while the corresponding figures for Mr Johnson and Mr Paddick are 7.2 per cent and 11.4 per cent respectively.

According to a new Guardian report, critics of Mr Livingstone claim he is vulnerable to the Tory challenge.

This news story was brought to you by Bluhalo, a leading UK digital agency.

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