• by Masha Geller , July 7, 2002

Nielsen//NetRatings reports that Web surfers at work flocked to military Web sites during the week ending June 30. Traffic to military sites surged 72%, drawing nearly 1.1 million Web surfers this past week, as compared to 617,000 the week prior.

The U.S. Navy website attracted 591,000 surfers, skyrocketing 88% in traffic as compared to 314,000 visitors the week prior. Nearly 545,000 visitors logged on to the U.S. Army website, surging 29% week-over-week, while the U.S. Air Force site drew 361,000 visitors. Military sites attracted a predominantly male audience with a 75/25 gender split.

"Military sites have served as gateways to the latest information on America's troops at home and abroad," said T.S. Kelly, director and principal analyst. "More and more, the military is using the Web not only to relay news, but also as a means to recruit."

"The Army's recruiting site, goarmy.com, is a prime example. Recently, the army even teamed up with video game makers to produce a free interactive PC game to help promote military careers," added Kelly.

Elsewhere on the web, things has stabilized somewhat. AOL, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google continued to be the most popular properties with both at-home and at-work audiences last week.

The average at-home surfer went online 7 times, spending just over 3 hours and 39 minutes surfing. At work, the average surfer went online 13 times, spending almost 7 hours and 11 minutes surfing. The average duration of a page viewed is about 53 seconds. The current U.S. Internet Universe, according to NetRatings, is holding steady at 166.5 million at-home users and 48.8 million at-work users.