Australians head overseas for politics Web sites - News - Communications

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Australians head overseas for politics Web sites

By Staff writers, ZDNet Australia
March 21, 2003
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Australians-head-overseas-for-politics-Web-sites/0,130061791,120273061,00.htm

Australians looking for political Web sites in the leadup to the war on Iraq headed overseas, with a British and a United States site filling the top two positions on the "most-visited" ladder.

Hitwise, a Web monitoring company, reported the Web site most visited by Australians in its 'political' category on Tuesday - the day US President George Bush issued his final ultimatum to Saddam Hussein - was the Guardian Unlimited's politics site, which rose from a previous ranking of 15th. "Australian users appear keen to follow the fortunes of Tony Blair with more than 4 percent of visitors book marking the website," reports Hitwise. The 'politics' category includes sites of political parties, or that are devoted to expressing views on local or international political issues, but excludes general news sites.

In second place in the political category is the Web site of Michael Moore,, a left-wing US media activist, whose site jumped from 12th position. More than 7 percent of visitors book-marked the anti-war site.

The top Australian site in the political category was Green Left, which rose from sixth to third position. Then came international activist site Move On, followed by the Victorian Electoral Commission.

The World Socialist Website was the sixth most visited political Web site, followed closely by the Australian Greens Homepage. The Australian anti-war site Vicpeace came next, followed by the international anti-war site Antiwar.com. In tenth place was the Australian Labor Party site.

The United Nations homepage also achieved its highest ranking on Tuesday. Hitwise reports that over 20 percent of the visitors then used various resources, such as the UN Treaty Collection, although less than two percent of the visitors clicked through to the International Court of Justice.

However, the beginning of hostilities has proved a boon for business and financial sites, which have been in steady decline since the beginning of the year, according to Hitwise. After an international address from US President George Bush earlier this week, Hitwise recorded a 142 percent surge in traffic to the 'Stocks and Shares' Web site over two days, reversing the trend that saw it falling 20 percent since the beginning of the year.