Liverpool have beaten Manchester United into second place for the title of most popular Premiership club on the internet among UK fans, according to a report published on the eve of the new football season.
The report, from online research firm HitWise, found that the official Liverpool FC website, www.liverpoolfc.tv, received a 17.3% share of all UK internet visits to Premier League club websites for the week ending August 4.
Manchester United's internet operation, www.manutd.com, was the second most popular of the 20 Premiership club websites with a 15.4% share.
Arsenal.com was third with a 10.9% share of visitors and Tottenham Hotspur fourth with a 7.5% share.
Newcastle United rounded out HitWise's top five in terms of share of visits to all Premiership websites with a 5.9% share for the week period.
Manchester City managed seventh, while headline-grabbing Chelsea could only manage 11th.
HitWise also found that of UK visitors to club websites, more than 70% of Manchester United and Liverpool fans were based outside the north-west.
However, when global support is taken into account it is Manchester United's massive online fan base that makes them the most popular UK club worldwide on the internet.
Figures measuring global unique users of the same websites in June, the most recent month for which research firm comScore has available statistics, shows that Manchester United had 2,453,000 unique visitors.
This was well ahead of second-ranked Liverpool, whose website attracted 1,689,000 unique visitors for the period.
Arsenal were third with 1,637,000 unique visitors and Chelsea's foreign fan base took them up to fourth place with 1 million unique users in June.
After fifth-ranked Tottenham Hotspur, with 388,000 unique visitors, the only club that registered a significant volume of international web traffic was West Ham with 284,000 unique visitors.
However, when it comes to football fans seeking information it is general interest websites, most notably the BBC's football offering, that command the most hits.
According to comScore the football section of the BBC sport website attracted 4 million unique users in the UK and 5.553 million worldwide in June.
· To contact the MediaGuardian newsdesk email editor@mediatheguardian.com or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.
· If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".
