The Conservatives have the most popular political party website in the UK.
Liberal Democrats web visits overtake Labour for the first time this year, according to the UK Online Measurement Company.
The Conservative website was the most popular political website in the UK last month, according to data from the UK Online Measurement Company (UKOM) with 150,000 unique audience.
These latest figures, which show the internet behaviour of the UK population each month, show that in March, the Liberal Democrats (115,000 unique audience) overtook Labour (114,000 unique audience) for the first time since last summer in terms of web popularity.
The results also show that visits to the BNP site rose significantly during times of public scrutiny. In October 2009 – when the Question Time featuring Nick Griffin aired – the site topped 152,000 unique audience, more than any other UK political party in that month. Last June, around the time of the local elections, the party attracted some 192,000 unique audience.
The Conservatives had the greatest proportion of female visitors to their site, with 44%, compared to Labour's 43% and the Liberals' 31%. And their support seems more evenly spread across the social classes than the other parties: 58% of Conservative site visitors are ABC1, compared to a surprising 71% for Labour and 75% for the Lib Dems.
UKOM General Manager James Smythe said: "This data reflects the complexity and dynamism of the race for UK voters' attention. Over the past 12 months the parties have taken turns to peak and dip in popularity, but it's become more important to deliver your party message as we get closer to the election.
Our research suggests that the Tories are attracting online interest from a bigger and broader section of society than the other parties - but as the BNP data shows us, visits don’t necessarily turn into votes.”
Chart 1: Web popularity of UK major political parties, March 2010
Source: UKOM
e.g.: In March 2010, The Conservative Party website was visited by 150,000 people in the UK from home and work location. On average, people spent 4 minutes 36 seconds on that site.
Chart 2: Site visit trends of major UK political parties, March 2009 - 2010
