14 DAY TRIAL // Although it was obvious that everybody is worried because of the continuous growing petrol prices since protests have been held in multiple regions of the world, the concern is also underlined by the recent online searches which clearly show that people are deeply interested in the matter. The percentage of the searches concerning petrol prices has been increased since Christmas and it keeps growing more and more, Hitwise revealed today. "Searches for the term have been increasing since Christmas, and have shot up in line with prices at the pump and the level of public and political interest in the issue," Robin Goad, Research Director for Hitwise UK, revealed.
It's interesting to note that search queries for "diesel prices" have also become more popular among Internet users, but petrol searches are leading, the Hitwise official added. The most used keywords typed on search engines were "european petrol prices", "compare petrol prices", "French petrol prices" and "cheapest petrol prices".
Obviously, websites which adopted petrol-related topics grew up in popularity. The best example is given by petrolprices.com, a website which attracted no less than 68 percent of the total number of searches for "petrol prices", Hitwise revealed. "The site has increased its market share of UK Internet visits by 270% this year, and last week the site was the 16th most visited in our Automotive category," Robin Goad explained.
What's interesting is that the UK has also met a similar fuel price search increase in 2006, between April and June, according to the chart provided by the research company. However, the percentage is still way behind the number of searches recorded in May 2008, as you can see for yourself by looking at the adjacent picture published by Hitwise.