Thursday 29 October was #NationalCatDay so the UK Web Archive have taken the opportunity to answer the BIG question that everyone is asking – are cats better than dogs? It is a rivalry as old as time itself and whilst it might be tricky to empirically say who is ‘best’ we can prove who is the most popular in the UK web space.

Using the SHINE interface we can look at trends in all of the .uk websites, based on the number of pages that a certain term is used over the years 1996-2013.

We want to be sure to capture as many cat and dog references as possible so the following term is a good start: cat OR kitten OR moggy OR kitty, dog OR puppy OR mutt

And the winner is [drumroll]…….

CATS!

That casual air of superiority that cats have appears to be fully justified.

Also, in 2005, in what we are now calling ‘Peak Cat’, pages with a mention of cats accounted for 4.5% of the ENTIRE .uk domain, as captured by the Internet Archive. Yes indeed, the humble moggy is popular with humans.

Try your own trend analysis: https://www.webarchive.org.uk/shine

By Jason Webber, Web Archiving Engagement and Liaison Manager