Pope’s Death Increases Online Religious Activity

April 13, 2005; 12:00 AM

NEW YORK, April 13, 2005 - With the sad passing of Pope John Paul II on April 2nd, 2005 online activity has increased to not only Catholic Web sites, but Web sites of all other religious denominations.

According to Hitwise, the world's leading online competitive intelligence service, Web sites for several religious denominations have experienced an increase in visits (based on the top 100 sites in the Hitwise Religion category). For week ending April 9th, 2005, Catholic sites saw an increase in market share of Internet visits of 118 percent, Latter Day Saints sites were up 40 percent, Judaism sites 22 percent and Christian sites were up 5 percent (when compared to week ending Nov. 6, 2004).

Hitwise Search Intelligence data shows that the passing of Pope John Paul II led to increased Internet searches by people seeking information about the leader of the Catholic Church. Key terms and their increase in share among all Internet searches for the week ending April 2, 2005 were: "pope" up 2,801 percent; "pope john paul ii" up 2,307 percent; and "pope john paul" up 3,161 percent. Among all Internet searches for the term "pope", the top resulting destination was the official Vatican Web site (www.vatican.va) with 11 percent of resulting visits, followed by Catholic.net (www.catholic.net) with 10 percent; and Google News (www.news.google.com) with 10 percent.

The market share of U.S. visits to the Vatican Web site increased 543 percent on the day of the Pope's death (April 2, 2005) versus the prior seven-day average. Coincidentally, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints held its 175th annual conference on April 2nd and 3rd, accompanied by an Internet broadcast. The market share of U.S. Internet visits to www.lds.org jumped 351 percent on April 2 versus the prior seven-day average.

"We continue to gain insight into how offline events effect the Internet visitor," said Bill Tancer, vice president of research, Hitwise. "This is a unique example of how a significant event can affect related sites within a category."

Christianity Make up Majority of Religion Web Sites

An analysis of the most visited religion and spiritual Web sites (for the week ending April 9, 2005) reveals that the top 100 comprise 67 percent of all visits for the category, with approximately 720 sites comprising the remainder.

Utah Internet Users Most Likely To Visit Religious Web Sites

The so-called Bible-Belt region has a tremendously high concentration of Web visitors frequenting religion sites, but visitors in Utah and Idaho were, respectively, 208 and 64 percent more likely to visit a religion Web site for the four weeks ending April 2, 2005.

The sites with the highest percentage of their visitors hailing from Utah or Idaho were affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS): LDS Mission Network (www.mission.net) 44 percent; LDS Library (www.library.lds.org) 38 percent; LDS LinkUp (www.ldslinkup.com) 36 percent; and LDS Official Home Page (www.lds.org) 33 percent.

After Utah and Idaho, states whose Internet users have the highest propensity to visit religion sites fall neatly into the Bible Belt; Mississippi 55 percent more likely; West Virginia 46 percent more likely; South Carolina 38 percent; Oklahoma 37 percent; Alabama 36 percent; North Carolina and Tennessee 34 percent; and Kentucky 33 percent more likely.

Religion Web sites with the highest proportion of visitors from these Bible Belt states were mostly Christian and Baptist affiliated: Southern Baptist Convention (www.sbc.net) 38 percent; Lifeway (www.lifeway.com) 36 percent; SermonAudio.com (www.sermonAudio.com) 31 percent; SermonCentral.com (www.sermoncentral.com) 29 percent; and Desiring God Ministries (www.desiringgod.org) 28 percent.        

Religion Attracts Lower Incomes, Elders

When it comes to religion, Internet users over age 55 are 24 percent more likely to visit these sites; conversely 18-24 year-olds are 28 percent less likely. Those with a household income less than $30K are 14 percent more likely to visit a religion site, while those with a household income greater than $150K are 22 percent less likely. Men and women are evenly split in their propensity to visit religion category.
 

For inquiries contact: Lizzie Babarczy (212) 380-2910; press@hitwise.com

About Hitwise:

Hitwise is the world's leading online competitive intelligence service. Each day, Hitwise monitors how more than 25 million Internet users interact with over 500,000 websites across 160 industry categories.

By monitoring more people, more websites, more often, Hitwise provides marketers with timely and actionable marketing insights on how their online presence compares to competitive websites.  Companies use this information to maximize the return on their online investment, in efforts such as search marketing, affiliate programs, online advertising, visitor segmentation, content development and lead generation.

Hitwise collects Internet usage information via a combination of ISP data partnerships and opt-in mega panels, and complies with local and international privacy legislation as audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Founded in 1997, Hitwise is a privately held company, headquartered in New York City and operates in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. 

More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.