LiveAuctioneers.com reported a marked increase in visits, page views and sign-ups to its online live-bidding platform in the second quarter, 2010. The company provides its live-bidding and related support services to 960 auction houses worldwide.

Traffic to the site, where both current and archived auction catalogs are available, rose 31% year-over-year to over 2.6 million unique visitors. The site had 33.7 million page views in Q2-2010 compared to 25.5 million in Q2-2009.

Search engines are helping to drive traffic: LiveAuctioneers CEO Julian Ellison said last quarter there were 2.3 million search-engine referrals to LiveAuctioneers, a 17% increase year-over-year.

"What our second-quarter results have shown us is that fine art, antiques and high-quality memorabilia seem to be performing as an independent microeconomy," said Ellison. "Globally, the economy is struggling, but at the same time, interest in collecting the best examples from any given category has never been higher. Fine art, in particular, has been surging, as we've witnessed lately in one record-setting auction after another."

Ellison attributed LiveAuctioneers.com's success in part to its focus on new technology. "We're constantly refining, inventing and evolving. That's where our focus will remain throughout 2010 and beyond," he said.