YouGov is a high-profile British Internet-based opinion pollster.

Launched in 2000, YouGov's methodology is to obtain responses from an invited group of Internet users, and then to filter these responses in line with demographic information. It draws these demographically-representative samples from a panel of more than 100,000 people. As YouGov's online methods require no field-force, its costs are lower than competitors that employ traditional face-to-face or telephone methods. YouGov has exploited its cheapness and speed to conduct more polls for newspapers and television programmes than any other organisation. Its media clients include the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times, The Economist and Sky News.

Critics argue that, as around 40% of the public do not have access to the Internet, its samples cannot accurately reflect the views of the population as a whole. YouGov has contended that its opinion polls in recent UK elections, e.g. the 2001 general election, have been consistently more accurate than traditional opinion pollsters who repeatedly over-estimated the Labour vote. This pattern was repeated during the 2005 general election campaign, when most traditional polls reported Labour's support in the range 38-41%, compared with the 36% it achieved on polling day. In contrast, YouGov's nine polls during the final three weeks of the campaign all showed Labour on 36 or 37%. Other polling evidence suggests that YouGov may thereby have missed the underlying story of the election - which was the changing likelihood to vote of Labour supporters, many of whom wanted a Labour government back, rather than a Tory one, but did not want to reward Tony Blair with a big majority. It is a function of their internet panel approach that YouGov isn't able to pick up turnout factors to the same degree as other pollsters and they exclude it from their methods. Traditional polls reflected this volatility during the campaign - but all the polls, including YouGov ended up very close to the final figures for each party. NOP (published in The Independent) were the most accurate pollster in 2005 - their final poll got the result exactly right. YouGov were, for the second election running, very close to the result - proving many sceptics about internet polling wrong.

YouGov is chaired by political commentator Peter Kellner, known for his appearances on TV, especially at election times. He is a journalist and opinion pollster, who is widely known in British media.

External link

• YouGov

Service companies of the United Kingdom | Public opinion research companies