Analysis of the websites of the major political parties suggests BBC News sends more traffic to the Tories’ homepage than Labour or the Lib Dems.
Rebootonline.com found that news outlets were 150% more likely to support the governing party rather than Labour in any given article.
Their analysis of referring domains of the key party websites found that organisations including the BBC, Daily Mail, and the Times were more likely to link to the official website for the Tories than Labour.
Even the Guardian had given more publicity to the party over Labour or the Lib Dems.
The Conservatives’ own website benefited 6,761 times from traffic to the BBC, the Lib Dems benefited 6,192 times and Labour just 2,601 times.
SEO specialist Naomi Aharony, who is Managing Direct for Reboot Online, said that traffic from news outlets can really help political parties online.
She said: “Links from online news outlets to political party websites have a powerful effect on the Google rankings for search terms.
“Ensuring your site ranks near the top of Google search is one of the most valuable weapons political parties have in this election as it means searchers are more exposed to your viewpoint over another competing party.”
The BBC has been contacted for comment.