I studied Regional Studies of Latin American at the University of Cologne - Germany, majoring in "Business Informatics“. I also studied Business Administration and currently I’m doing a Master in International Business Administration. I feel a fascination with SEO and the people who make it possible.

SISTRIX has been analysing the visibility of practically all domains with rankings on Google.co.uk, since 2010. This SISTRIX Visibility Index score is well suited to easily comparing domains with each other. The Visibility Index can also be broken down to evaluate subdomains, directories and individual URLs on the domain.

Here, and fully updated for August 2020, we present you with the Top-100 of the most visible websites on Google Search in the UK. This list is updated weekly in the Toolbox where you can also find a daily list of winners & losers. Below the list you’ll find our analysis and top 10 lists of gains and losses.

Latest update: 18 August 2020, mobile search visibility in google.co.uk.

The Top 100 domains in the UK by Visibility Index # Domain Visibility Index 1 wikipedia.org 5,931.47 2 amazon.co.uk 2,601.56 3 youtube.com 1,432.10 4 ebay.co.uk 1,035.02 5 facebook.com 924.34 6 imdb.com 770.94 7 cambridge.org 742.45 8 amazon.com 656.89 9 dictionary.com 582.59 10 merriam-webster.com 543.63 11 pinterest.com 521.37 12 fandom.com 449.08 13 bbc.co.uk 437.4 14 britannica.com 437.38 15 argos.co.uk 426.4 16 wiktionary.org 417.16 17 www.nhs.uk 405.35 18 healthline.com 351.48 19 theguardian.com 343.88 20 instagram.com 334.77 21 google.com 327 22 twitter.com 321.12 23 tripadvisor.co.uk 303.77 24 urbandictionary.com 301.52 25 etsy.com 300.76 26 www.gov.uk 288.35 27 collinsdictionary.com 259.74 28 lexico.com 232.4 29 thefreedictionary.com 229.76 30 genius.com 220.79 31 thesaurus.com 194.32 32 webmd.com 190.08 33 rottentomatoes.com 183.76 34 linkedin.com 183.73 35 bbcgoodfood.com 178.24 36 mayoclinic.org 175.34 37 discogs.com 172.9 38 gumtree.com 170.03 39 wayfair.co.uk 164.58 40 [xxx] 163.33 41 sciencedirect.com 160.92 42 spotify.com 159.79 43 nih.gov 154.45 44 independent.co.uk 150.26 45 [xxx] 149.21 46 microsoft.com 142.36 47 next.co.uk 138.51 48 screwfix.com 132.92 49 medicalnewstoday.com 130.93 50 asos.com 129.48 51 johnlewis.com 124.56 52 investopedia.com 124.52 53 yourdictionary.com 124.1 54 shutterstock.com 121.5 55 currys.co.uk 120.76 56 booking.com 120.18 57 pinterest.co.uk 120.17 58 reddit.com 119.39 59 nytimes.com 117.13 60 macmillandictionary.com 115.77 61 dailymail.co.uk 115.42 62 google.co.uk 115.32 63 indeed.co.uk 109.04 64 thesun.co.uk 108.83 65 telegraph.co.uk 107.86 66 debenhams.com 104.84 67 goodreads.com 102.72 68 [xxx] 102.09 69 goodhousekeeping.com 99.89 70 azlyrics.com 97.82 71 steampowered.com 96.01 72 companieshouse.gov.uk 95.41 73 autotrader.co.uk 93.18 74 ldoceonline.com 91.17 75 apple.com 90.57 76 soundcloud.com 90.1 77 forbes.com 89.77 78 ebay.com 88.75 79 [xxx] 88.55 80 vocabulary.com 88.52 81 techradar.com 87.53 82 quora.com 80.57 83 ikea.com 77.84 84 nationalgeographic.com 75.44 85 diy.com 75.19 86 mirror.co.uk 73.93 87 bbc.com 73.26 88 dailymotion.com 72.51 89 cnn.com 71.98 90 therange.co.uk 71.44 91 pcmag.com 70.41 92 songfacts.com 70.03 93 history.com 69.97 94 biography.com 68.63 95 cnet.com 68.03 96 cosmopolitan.com 67.94 97 gettyimages.co.uk 67.28 98 moneysavingexpert.com 66.39 99 rollingstone.com 63.91 100 medium.com 63.01

Domains marked with [XXX] are adult content sites.

Analysis

There are a lot of changes but one of the most significant is the continuing visibility loss of Wikipedia. While it still holds a strong position #1 it has lost nearly 2000 visibility points in the last 12 months which frees up space for other domains.

There are now three dictionaries in the top 10 (from 2 in 2019) and Cambridge, the UK company, has gained two positions.

In terms of well-known UK brands, BBC (both .com and .co.uk) have slipped, Argos have gained 8 positions and The Guardian have dropped 8 positions.

Among the new domains in the top 100 this time round are rollingstone.com, medium.com, gettyimages.co.uk, biography.com, history.com, nationalgeographic.com, companieshouse.co.uk and goodhousekeeping.com.

Looking at UK high street / e-tail brands, and ignoring the elephants – Amazon and Ebay, gains have been made in the last 12 months by argos.co.uk, etsy.com, wayfair.co.uk, next.co.uk, screwfix.com, asos.com, currys.co.uk, ikea.com, debenhams.com, diy.com, therange.co.uk. There were two ‘high street’ losers: johnlewis.com dropped slightly, and dunelm.com dropped out of the top 100.

Top 10 domain gains in the Top 100

The table below shows the biggest absolute Visibility Index gains made by top domains in the year August 2019 – August 2020.

Domain gains August 2019 - August 2020 Domain VI gain August 2019 - August 2020 amazon.co.uk 294.636 pinterest.com 235.795 dictionary.com 183.559 instagram.com 119.686 ebay.co.uk 106.472 argos.co.uk 102.31 britannica.com 102.223 etsy.com 84.392 cambridge.org 82.821 healthline.com 77.497

Top 10 domain losses in the Top 100

The table below shows the biggest absolute Visibility Index losses made by top domains in the year August 2019 – August 2020.

Domain losses August 2019 - August 2020 Domain VI loss August 2019 - August 2020 wikipedia.org -1,909.77 twitter.com -585.035 facebook.com -356.437 google.co.uk -280.414 theguardian.com -211.117 independent.co.uk -133.071 oxforddictionaries.com -132.077 imdb.com -101.73 indeed.co.uk -99.438 genius.com -81.788

At the moment, a website in the United Kingdom needs a Visibility Index score of over 63 points to enter into the Top-100.

You’re not in the Top 100? Don’t worry! These domains represent an extremely small number of domains that rank and they are generally very mature and generally cover an extremely wide range of topics. 10 years ago, therange.co.uk had a Visibility Index of just 0.56, representing. under one-hundredth of the visibility it has today.

For information on the UK supermarket sector, see this post and in our annual Indexwatch analysis, you’ll find a detailed list and analysis of winners and losers from the previous year.

How does SISTRIX calculate the Visibility Index?

We use a keyword set of 1.000.000 keywords (search phrases) and evaluate the first 100 search results on Google.co.uk to create a daily Visibility Index for Desktop and Mobile Search. The keywords are chosen in such a way that they reflect the average search behaviour for the UK.

The results are then weighed by position and search volume for each keyword. A ranking on the 10th spot for a keyword with a high searchvolume, such as “estate agent”, has a higher bearing on the calculations than a top position for a keyword such as “home purchase as investment opportunity“. We also incorporate the differing click-through-rates for different keywords. Finally, we accumulate all the values for all the rankings found for a domain, which results in the SISTRIX Visibility Index.

The Visibility Index allows for compelling competitive analysis of your competitors. You can identify the most successful websites for a certain segment, discover the reasons for their success and use this knowledge as a “best practice example” to increase the success of your own project. Thus, it is easy to recognise and adapt SEO-methods which have been successful and are ideal to follow.

More detailed information on the Visibility Index.

SISTRIX has been calculating the Visibility Index scores with great accuracy and reliability since 2008, and we now cover 30 countries.