Number One or Number Two - the topsy turvy world of online rankings

Thomson is understandably chuffed to pieces after overtaking Expedia in the first few weeks of January in the Hitwise online agency rankings.

Being able to say "We are the #1 online travel agency in the UK", or similar, on promotional material goes a long way. Not that Thomson has used it in that way yet.

But the scene at the top of the pile changes often.

The top ten for the week ending 13 January went like this:

• Thomson Holidays
• Expedia
• Lastminute.com
• First Choice
• Thomas Cook
• TravelSupermarket
• Cheapflights
• TravelRepublic
• Teletext Holidays
• Ebookers

But here is a graph illustrating the relative positions of Thomson and Expedia throughout 2007.


One can read a few things into this:

Seasonality impacts on Expedia and Thomson in different and/or the gap between the two is incredibly close, meaning the positions change frequently.

The other thing to note with the remaining sites in the top ten is the presence of TravelRepublic (above Ebookers), the inclusion of non-travel agency sites (Cheapflights and TravelSupermarket), and the absence of Opodo (number 12 or 13 normally).

Kevin May, editor, Travolution

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