Data from Hitwise shows that Twitter is getting more traffic than most newspaper sites in the UK. Twitter is the 54th most visited site there.
Twitter has overtaken sites like the Guardian, Times, Sun, Telegraph, and even Google News UK. Daily Mail is the only main newspaper home page that received more traffic than Twitter in the UK.
Hitwise’s Robin Goad notes, “There are few caveats here, the first relating to how we categorize newspaper websites within Hitwise. Wherever possible we split out topic specific domains for the newspapers, particularly the broadsheets (e.g. Times Online – Business, Telegraph Sport, Technology Guardian, etc.). Consequently the traffic illustrated in the chart above refers only to the newspapers’ main homepages; although in every case these do receive the majority each title’s visits.”
Another interesting thing to note is that many of these newspapers are getting a fair amount of their own traffic from Twitter. Goad illustrates this here:
Hitwise only measured traffic through Twitter’s homepage, and not through third-party apps (like Twellow for example). This indicates that Twitter is only downplayed in this report.
It’s pretty clear that social networks are driving traffic. If you’d like to learn more about driving traffic to your own site with Twitter, read this. You can check out this one for Facebook too, which is driving more traffic than even Google to some sites.