The most popular website for Britain’s under-12s was set up by a Finnish woman of 60 who wanted to pass on the art of knitting clothes for dolls.

A survey by the internet analysts Nielsen Online put Stardoll.com at the head of its Top Ten sites visited by the youngest web users.

Second in the list was Club Penguin, a virtual world in which players adopt a bird and march it round the beach, theatre or school. Stardoll.com makes money by selling items of virtual clothing for about 50p each. Club Penguin offers a subscription service.

Other sites favoured by young surfers were the online portals of the TV channels Cartoon Network and Nick, and Lego.com.

In the 12-17 age group, Frengo — a service which connects users to their social networking sites — fared the best, followed by Runescape, the online role-paying game, and Bebo, the social networking site.

The Nielsen study of 40,000 British internet users examined which sites had the highest concentration of users of a particular age group.

The popularity of sites is difficult to measure because several sites — such as Google — are so large that they will always come out on top. Nielsen’s tactic of measuring a percentage of a site’s audience, rather than outright numbers, in a given age group attempts to get around this problem.

Entertainment industry experts said that interactive games were by far and away the most popular type of content with under-12s because they were more immersive than video. “In focus groups, we often ask kids what they would like to do most with our shows, and the answer is always, ‘We want to be in the cartoon’,” said Ian McClelland, director of digital development for EMEA at Turner Broadcasting, which owns Cartoon Network.

Where they play

Top sites for under-12s

Stardoll.com: 32 per cent of audience under 12

Club Penguin: 29 per cent

Nick: 25 per cent

Top sites for 12-17s

Frengo: 26 per cent

Runescape: 25 per cent

Bebo: 19 per cent

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