Sony Traffic Surges With Google Promo

After Google launched a promotion of "The Da Vinci Code" on its home page, traffic at Sony Motion Pictures' Web site skyrocketed--increasing to about .0078 percent of all Web visits on May 6, from .0047 percent on April 15, according to data released Thursday by Hitwise.

Google accounted for 30 percent of the visits to Sony's site by May 6, 20 days after the promotion launched in mid-April--compared to competitors Yahoo and MSN's .93 percent and .37 percent, respectively. In the week leading up to the promotion's launch, Google accounted for roughly 3 percent of traffic sent to Sony's Web site.

To promote the movie, Google created a contest that involved branded entertainment puzzles for users' personalized home pages. Google linked to the contest on its own home page--marking the first time that Google promoted another company's product on the home page.

Separately, Fandango Thursday announced that the movie already is popular with Web users. As of Thursday, "The Da Vinci Code" is Fandango's best-selling ticket of the week--even though it won't open until May 19.

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