Page last updated at 14:20 GMT, Thursday, 12 February 2009

Queen launches new-look website

Members of the public queue to see the Royal wedding cake in Reading, 1923

The Queen has relaunched her website at a Buckingham Palace reception in the company of the world wide web's inventor, Sir Tim Berners-Lee.

The royal site, which started in 1997, now includes more video material as well as historical documents.

Queen Victoria's journal in which she describes trying out Alexander Graham Bell's new invention, the telephone, is to be among the new features.

About 250,000 people around the world visit the site each week.

The Queen stood in front of a bank of nine screens and clicked a remote control to re-launch the site.

The Monarchy site's homepage appeared showing a range of simple menus and tabs which it is hoped will make it easier to navigate.

In touch

In a speech, Sir Tim Berners-Lee said the website "celebrates a really important part of the British cultural tradition - the monarchy - and is a great resource for the people within Britain, so it deepens that culture.

Tim Berners-Lee: "The number of things people do on the web is amazing"

"But at the same time it's there for anybody to see it from other countries, where they really don't understand how the monarchy works - what it does do, what it doesn't do - so now they can go and look."

When the site was first launched, the Queen spoke of how some parents and grandparents found the internet "a bit of a mystery".

BBC royal correspondent Peter Hunt said while the site should be more user-friendly, the Queen is only going so far into cyberspace.

"We can't e-mail her and there's little prospect of the Queen blogging, conducting a webchat or indeed twittering," our correspondent added.

The Duke of Edinburgh appearing in an advert for the Playing Fields Association, 1951

The site was visited more than 100 million times in its first year, making it one of the most popular locations on the internet at the time. And in the week of Princess Diana's funeral, some 35 million visits were recorded. is not the only presence the Queen has on the internet. In 2007, she launched her own channel on the video-sharing website YouTube.

The Royal Channel features her Christmas Day message, and recent and historical footage of the monarch and other members of the Royal Family.

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Millions drawn into Royal web
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Sydney Morning Herald Track the Queen on her revamped website - 12 hrs ago
Guardian Unlimited The Queen unveils new website - 15 hrs ago
Glasgow Herald Royal family enters the digital age as Queens website is revamped - 16 hrs ago
Personal Computer World The Queen launches new-look royal web site - 21 hrs ago
Telegraph Rare photos of the Queen's first ever public speech released by Buckingham Palace - 21 hrs ago

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