# Comic Relief websites dominate traffic survey and search terms

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2005/03/27/comic-relief-websites-dominate-traffic-survey-and-search-terms/
- Published: 2005-03-27T00:00:00+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

Comic Relief’s website achieved a massive rise in traffic in the month before Red
Nose Day and the final of the celebrity Fame Academy competition on 12 March 2005.

According to web traffic monitors Hitwise UK, “the Red Nose Day activities prompted
a huge surge in traffic to several key sites, including Comic Relief’s official 
RND ’05 website (www.rednoseday.com), the BBC’s Red Nose Day site (www.bbc.co.uk/
rednoseday) and the Comic Relief website itself (www.comicrelief.com)”.

The rednoseday.com site ultimately achieved a massive market share figure of 14.6%
on Friday March 12, becoming the second most popular site in the Hitwise Community
sector. It was beaten only by the BBC’s Red Nose Day site, which jumped more than
227 places overall to achieve a remarkable 20% market share of the Community category.
This was the URL promoted on the BBC telethon. Thus two Comic Relief site’s achieve
34.6% share of the Hitwise Community category.

Celebrity Fame Academy, part of the Red Nose Day campaign, raised more than £1.3
million for the charity by registering 8.25 million votes in the weeks leading up
Friday’s final. At the same time the offical Fame Academy site at www.bbc.co.uk/
fameacademy achieved a four-fold increase in traffic. According to Hitwise UK, “
the site held just over 1% of all traffic to the Hitwise Television category on 
Friday 4th March, and this increased to almost 4% by Thursday 11th March as viewers
cast last-minute votes for their favourite celebrities.”

## Advertisement

 [⌊Posthub advert. You create the campaign. We'll handle the postal journey. Get started at post-hub.co.uk.⌉](https://fundraising.co.uk/ads/posthub-20261007-300x250/)

Comic Relief’s success was in part driven by online searches, and it dominated the
month’s most popular search terms. Both ‘red nose day’ and ‘comic relief’ dominated
the top terms in March, with a combined market share of over 3%.

At the same time, Oxfam’s Make Poverty History campaign also did well, with the 
term ‘make poverty history’ the ninth most searched-for term resulting in traffic
to the Community sector.

Other popular terms in the Community sector search terms for March list included‘
wristbands’ at number seven, reflecting the craze for charity wristbands.

According to Hitwise UK, the top 10 search terms in the community category, based
on data for the four weeks ending 19 March 2005, were:

    ```
    Search Term Share (%) 
    1. red nose day 1.69 
    2. comic relief 1.59 
    3. national trust 0.68 
    4. rspb 0.49 
    5. oxfam 0.48 
    6. rspca 0.43 
    7. wristbands 0.38 
    8. telephone preference service 0.38 
    9. make poverty history 0.35 
    10. race for life 0.34 
    ```

 * **[Fundratios reports continued rise in committed giving](https://fundraising.co.uk/2005/03/28/fundratios-reports-continued-rise-committed-giving/)**(
   28 March 2005)
 * **[Big Lottery Fund grants pass the £6 billion mark](https://fundraising.co.uk/2005/05/12/big-lottery-fund-grants-pass-6-billion-mark/)**(
   12 May 2005)
 * **[English schools raise £1.5 billion a year, says DfES](https://fundraising.co.uk/2005/05/14/english-schools-raise-15-billion-year-says-dfes/)**(
   14 May 2005)