Barack Obama tops UK searches

US presidential hopeful Barack Obama was the most searched-for politician by UK surfers during February, according to figures from web monitoring firm Hitwise.

The presidential hopeful received three times as many searches compared to Hilary Clinton. Gordon Brown came in third, ahead of US Republican Senator John McCain. Conservative leader David Cameron was fifth on the search list.

If internet hits are an indication, then Mr Obama is certainly the front runner for the November elections. During the week of Super Tuesday his website received more visits than any of the major UK political party sites.

Robin Goad, director of research at Hitwise said that the searches for the senator have dropped since Super Tuesday, but his website remains more popular than both Labour and the Liberal Democrats websites, with only the Conservatives ahead.

The top sites visited by UK surfers for the US election are Wikipedia and Google News UK.

The growing interest in American politics has resulted in a 30 per cent increase in visits to top US websites like the New York Times, MSNBC and Fox News, when compared with last year, according to Hitwise.

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