[London, ENGLAND] According to Internet advertising monitor AdZone Interactive, expenditure on Web advertising in Europe rose by an average of 11 percent from July to August this year.

Until now, there have not been any accurate figures available for measuring how much is being spent on Web advertising in Europe. Two months after announcing its entry into the field, AdZone Interactive has produced a set of measurements for 425 sites.

However, the average figure can be misleading. Whereas the U.K. posted a mere 1 percent rise, the rest of Europe showed a whopping 31 percent increase.

The difference between the two comes about because Web revenues in the U.K. were already running at a much higher level than in most European countries during July. The figures for August were: Europe US $109 million, of which the U.K. share was US $64.5 million.

John Cardona, president of AdZone Interactive, commented that this is the first time that the advertising and business community has been able to get "a real handle on what is happening on Web sites in Europe."

"If you look at the trends, it is clear that there is some significant growth going on. The boom that Europe is currently experiencing mirrors the growth of the U.S. ad spending from just a few years ago," said Cardona.

AdZone Interactive lists the big spenders and the big reapers, some of whom appear in both Top Tens.

Way out in front of the top spenders is French games portal ZoneJeux.com, getting 634 million impressions for its spend of US $6.48 million. It was followed by VirginMoney.com (74 million impressions and US $3.3 million spend) and Autosport.com (60 million impressions and US $2.69 million spend).

Reaping the rewards were French portal Francité (628 million impressions and US $6.29 million revenues), uk.yahoo.com (137 million impressions and US $5.34 million revenues) and iii.co.uk (102 million impressions and US $4.59 million revenues).

The AdZone Interactive research covered Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the U.K. In the U.S., AdZone tracks advertising on over 1,300 Web sites.