UCAS website visits soar on A-Level results day

Visitors to the UCAS university admissions site increased dramatically on A-Level results day. 

The UCAS site rose over 60 places from 103rd most visited site by UK surfers to 37th on 17 August, according to figures released by web monitoring firm Hitwise. 

The site accounted for one in every 400 UK internet visits on the day and was second only to online encyclopaedia Wikipedia for education sites. 

Heather Hopkins, director of research at Hitwise UK, said that Undgergrad 06, a site offering information and offers for students, was the most followed sponsored link. 

"It is interesting that the visual banner ads from HSBC, Unite and The Open University did not attract as many clicks as the text ads for Laptops Direct and Undergrad 06," Hopkins wrote on the Hitwise Analyst Weblog.

"HSBC ranked at number 93 in downstream sites from UCAS, Unite at number 58 and The Open University at number 108. Laptop Direct came in at 21."