Labour's web visitors are crossing over to see Howard's way

by Daniel Farey-Jones Brand Republic 06-Apr-05, 12:00

LONDON – Online behaviour shows the public is more likely to defect from Labour to the Tories than vice versa, according to data released to coincide with the start of the General Election campaign.

Hitwise has analysed traffic between Labour's site and the Conservatives' site on Sunday April 3 -- two days before the official election date was named by Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Its figures show that 10% of visitors to Labour's site moved on to the Conservatives' site, while only 2.4% of visitors to the Conservatives' site moved to Labour's.

The Tories have also been more sought-after than Labour; the term "labour party" has attracted 40% fewer searches than the term "conservative party"

However, the total number of searches for the three main party leaders dropped as a proportion of all searches over the last month, from 0.0029% to 0.0016% -- indicating that the public could already be tiring of the election campaign, even though it has only just kicked off formally.

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