Commentary

Just an Online Minute... Frequent Visit Stats

A new year – a new research study dispelling an old myth. We’ve long thought that most people have about 13 favorite websites they visit on a regular basis and that set of favorites rarely changes. Not really so, says BURST Media, which recently found that nearly two-out-of-three (63.1%) frequently visit new websites. BURST also found that young web users (24 years and less) are less likely than older web surfers to say they "frequently visit new sites.”

Overall, four-out-of-five respondents (83.5%) said in a typical week they visit more sites today than compared to a year ago. In fact, fully 41.2% of respondents say they are visiting many more sites today compared to a year ago - female respondents (46.8%) are more likely than male respondents (37.3%) to say this. As expected, new web users say they are visiting more sites today than a year ago - but so are experienced web users with 39.8% of respondents with four or more years of web experience saying they are visiting more websites today than a year ago.

Let the Reach and Frequency debate resume!

Not surprisingly, search engines and word-of-mouth are the most common ways web users hear about new websites - with 61.3% and 50.8% of respondents citing these sources. Other sources for new websites include hyperlinks from other web pages (47.8%), magazines/newspapers (29.9%), Internet portals (26.5%), television commercials (19.1%), books (18.1%), signatures at end of email messages 9.8%, and Usenet newsgroups 6.4%.

The Burst survey also provided some interesting demographic stats. Sixty-five percent of respondents said staying in contact with others though email and chat is a reason they use the Internet. Other reasons to use the web include; gathering information for personal needs (54.9%), entertainment (51.4%), education (50.4%), keeping up with current events (45.1%), and wasting time (37.2%). Also, the 25-34 year segment is significantly more likely than any other age segment to say they use the Internet to keep up with current events. Also, older age segments (35+ years) are much more likely than respondents under the age of 35 years to say they use the Internet as a resource for gathering information on personal needs as well as product information gathering.

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