One in six UK page views are Facebook

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Facebook now accounts for one in six of all page views in the UK.

This was the conclusion of a new study by research firm Hitwise, which showed the social network was responsible for 16.73 per cent of the page views from our shores.

However, despite this seemingly untouchable dominance, it was still only the second most visited site in the UK, with Google taking the crown at 9.59 per cent of all visits.

This meant even though people might click through many more pages on one visit to Facebook, unique users still visited the Google homepage more often.

Facebook topped the traffic to social networks though, claiming over half 54.48 per cent of the visits to all these types of sites, beating the likes of MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter.

"However, with 26 million British users already, when will it start to reach saturation point?" asked Robin Goad, research director of Hitwise UK.

"Facebook's market share of UK page views has trebled over the last five years, but growth has slowed significantly over the last six months," he added.

Goad also said the research showed a slight decline in market share for visits when it came to the figures for July. However, this could be put down to "seasonality" as the back to school period in August and September always saw a surge, he claimed.

It is not just page views though. Goad claimed his company's research also showed a stabilising of the average time spent on the site, something which had increased at a fast rate as the site grew in popularity.

He added: "Clearly Facebook is not losing traffic in the UK, but do these stats point to a stabilisation? The rapid period of the site's growth is now probably over in the UK, but does that mean Facebook has reached saturation point?"

Now Facebook may have another rival to contend with, as the site which beat it in visits is rumoured to be launching a social network.

Take a look at our feature comparing Facebook to the possible Google Me site, rumoured to be on its way.

Jennifer Scott

Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.

Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.