Facebook is the most popular website in the UK in terms of page views, according to a new study.

Experian Hitwise found that the social networking portal accounted for 14.5 per cent of all pages looked at within the country during September, more than double the market share of nearest rival Google UK, which had 5.8 per cent of viewings.  It also received more individual page hits than the rest of the top four - Google UK, eBay UK and YouTube - combined.

Explaining the statistics, Experian Hitwise's UK based director of research Robin Goad said: "Facebook was the second most visited website ... after Google UK, but because users view a much larger number of pages per visit, Facebook is the clear leader in terms of page views."

The site was even more dominant when looking solely at the social networking sector. It had 49.2 per cent of page views in this market, putting it significantly ahead of YouTube (16.5 per cent), Bebo (3.7 per cent), Twitter (2.2 per cent) and MySpace (2.1 per cent).

Recent research from freshbusinessthinking.com indicated that these types of websites are proving popular among smaller firms, with 45 per cent using them to boost their profile.