Majestic takes top spot in brand performance and visibility

Majestic Wine has taken the top spot as ‘market leader’ in online alcohol brands for a second year in a row, according to an annual UK report which charts the shifts in brand performance over the past year. 

The Online Alcohol 2025 Salience Index looks at a number of metrics to calculate the year-on-year visibility, volume of online searches, and awareness of alcohol brands among others as an indicator of overall website growth or decline.

The market leader is calculated using an “estimated organic traffic score” for each brand, which is based on keywords from the top 100 organic search results for each brand, using SEO and digital marketing platform Ahrefs. This calculates a site’s search traffic based on the ranking position, monthly search volume, and an estimated click-through rate. Although admitting that “these aren’t accurate representations of traffic in Google Analytics”, it said they do provide “performance metrics relative to each domain”.

Majestic easily topped the list with an organic traffic score of 509,538, the report’s analysis found, followed by upmarket London retail Fortnum & Mason and The Whisky Exchange, with organic traffic scores of 208,189 and 199,474 respectively.

Waitrose Cellar and Laithwaites completed the top five spots, with Brewdog and Master of Malt coming in sixth and seventh place, followed by DrinkSupermarket, Virgin Wine and Beerwulf.

According to the report, these brands are on the rise with the biggest growth in the market.

“Whatever they’re doing, search engines are loving it…” it said. “These scores indicate excellent organic visibility and a well-planned strategy, which resulted in strong traffic figures.”

Visibility

What is notable is the change in visibility since last year, both upward and downward, the report said.

Majestic Wine for example saw a year-on-year growth of 15%, reflecting a “clear efforts to boost online visibility”, the report noted, with Fortnum & Masons seeing similar levels of growth. It came second place with a traffic score of 208,189, ahead of Waitrose Cellar, which also grew 9%. Meanwhile Beerwulf, which showed impressive growth of 25%, went into the fourth spot.

This was dwarfed however by the the whopping 95% visibility growth of The Alcohol Free Co represented the maturation of the no and low category, as it nearly doubled its traffic score from 13,416 in August 2024, to 26,104 in August 2025.

In a crowded market, not everyone increases their visibility and The Whisky Exchange, Laithwaites, Drink Supermarket and Vivino all saw double-digit declines in their traffic scores.

The Whisky Exchange was hit in volume terms, seeing its traffic fall by 12% in the 12-month period to August 2025, with the traffic score now sitting at 199,474. Laithwaites and Vivino also experienced “turbulent years”, it said, at -34 and -38% respectively, while The Bar lost 81% of its visibility.

Most trusted

That said, Laithwaites was rated the best brand based on the number of Trustpilot reviews, with a review (109,530 review), followed by Master of Malt, with a review score of 4.9 across 37,572 reviews and The Whisky Exchange, which had an average review score of 4.8 across 46,068 reviews.

Brett Janes, managing director at Salience Search Marketing, said that the analysis of the UK alcohol industry uncovered “fascinating insights” on which brands are dominating online visibility, which are receiving strong customer reviews, and which have seen “the biggest shifts in performance over the past year”.

“This year, Majestic Wine continues to lead the market in terms of organic visibility, while Laithwaites stands out as the best-rated brand among consumers. It’s also notable to see emerging momentum from brands like The Alcohol Free Co, which recorded the highest growth in visibility.

“It will be interesting to see how the competitive landscape evolves over the next twelve months and whether new challengers can break into the top tier of the sector.”

 

 

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