According to a new Hitwise report, the market share of U.S. visits to Question and Answer websites has increased 118 percent for the week ending Mar. 15, 2008, compared to the same week in 2007. Over the past two years, U.S. visits to this category have increased 889 percent comparing Feb. 2008 versus Feb. 2006.

(The data is based on eight of the leading Answer websites ranked by U.S. market share of visits as defined by the IAB from the Hitwise sample of 10 million)

The most visited website within the Questions and Answers category (Wk of 3/15/08) was Yahoo! Answers which received 74.05 percent of the market share of U.S. visits. WikiAnswers was the second most visited website, followed by Answerbag WikiAnswers, launched in June 2007, has seen its U.S. visits increase 125 percent comparing the week ending Jun. 9, 2007 versus Mar. 15, 2008.

Heather Dougherty, research director, Hitwise, said "...The popularity of user generated media has helped to establish a category for social knowledge where consumers can obtain answers from a single aggregated source developed through others asking similar questions."

Average Time Spent and Demographics

• Females accounted for 52 percent of all the U.S. visits to the top five Question and Answer websites for the week ending Mar. 15, 2008. The majority of these visits came from users between the ages of 35-44, 24 percent, followed by users 25-34 with 21 percent
• The average visit time among the top five Question and Answers websites increased 44 percent comparing the week ending Mar. 15, 2008 versus the week ending Mar. 17, 2007

For the week ending Mar. 15, 2008, Yahoo! Answers received 52 percent of its share of traffic from new visitors. Among the top five Question and Answer websites by market share, WikiAnswers.com and Answerbag followed with 76 and 87 percent, respectively, of new traffic that has not visited during the previous month. Askville received the highest amount of new traffic with 93 percent. (A returning visitor is defined as a user that has visited the site in the past 30 days from the Hitwise sample.)

For more information, please visit the Hitwise Data Center here.