Daniel Craig second most searched for celebrity

Daniel Craig was beaten to the top spot by Faith Brown

New Bond star Daniel Craig was pipped to the top spot of most searched for celebrity last week, despite rave reviews for his performance in Casino Royale.

According to figures released by web monitoring firm Hitwise, Craig was beaten to the top spot by current I'm a Celebrity contestant Faith Brown. 

The share of UK internet searches for 'faith brown' increased by a factor of five last week, up from a base of zero two weeks ago. Interest in the comedienne appears to be driven by searches for photos, in particular topless photos, according to Hitwise.

The share of UK internet searches for 'daniel craig' increased by a factor of three in the past week and up by a factor of 38 in the past four weeks. After the term 'daniel craig' UK searchers were interested in pictures of Craig without clothes.

"After the term 'daniel craig' the top search term that included the actor's name was 'daniel craig naked'," Heather Hopkins, director of research for Hitwise UK, wrote on the Hitwise Analyst blog. 

Searches for Craig outweighed those for Tom Cruise by a factor of six last week, despite his highly publicised wedding to Katie Holmes.

Paris Hilton came in at third place, just ahead Britney Spears. With rumours circulating about the release of a sex-tape, internet searches for 'britney spears' spiked two weeks ago.

The Hitwise top 10 celebrity searches for the week ending 18 November were:

1. Faith Brown
2. Daniel Craig
3. Paris Hilton
4. Britney Spears
5. Belinda Emmett
6. Christina Aguilera
7. George Michael
8. Lil Chris
9. Beyoncé
10. Eminem

• Top US sites attract most traffic from outside America
• Wikipedia and YouTube win big in September
• Europe leads US for mobile web access
• YouTube serving 100 million videos a day