Celebrity news boosts Google traffic

Celebrity-related stories boosted the Google News service in the UK last week, according to web-monitoring firm Hitwise.

The company said that Kanye West's unscheduled appearance on the stage at the MTV VMAs and Katie Price's rape allegations saw many people searching for news about the two celebrities.

The untimely deaths of Patrick Swayze and Keith Floyd also generated traffic for Google News UK.

"The site was the second biggest recipient of UK searches for ‘patrick swayze' and ‘kanye west', third for ‘katie price' and fourth for ‘keith floyd'," said Robin Goad of Hitwise.

More than eight per cent of searches for Swayze ended up in Google News, with 9.29 per cent of searches for Katie Price arriving at the site, Hitwise said.

"Last week was Google News UK's busiest ever, with visits increasing 71 per cent and the site ranking as the 28th most popular overall - up from 46th the previous week," said Goad.