• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, February 20, 2006

"American Idol" might be trouncing the Olympics on TV, but NBCOlympics.com is poised to win the online competition for viewers.

For the week ending Feb. 12, NBCOlympics.com drew 2.3 million unique users at home and work--nearly five times as many visitors as the site of "American Idol," IdolonFox.com, which attracted just 509,000 uniques, according to new data from Nielsen//NetRatings.

In a testament to the growing use of home broadband, NBCOlympics.com overall has garnered 55 percent more visitors from home than the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. On TV, however, ratings have plummeted compared to the 2002 Olympics.

Two other Olympics sites, Torino2006 and Olympic.org, also lured large numbers of Web surfers. Torino2006 drew 748,000 visitors, while Olympic.org received 433,000 visitors.

NBC has aggressively promoted its Olympics site; efforts have included a deal with Google to place video clips at the top of search results. NBC provided Google Video with hundreds of pre-game previews and in-game 15-second previews from NBCOlympics.com. When users type Olympic-related keywords into Google's search box, the clips are displayed above Google's natural search results.

NBC also tapped the New York Times Co.'s About.com for content, including an "About Olympics" blog. About.com is also promoting NBC's Olympics sites on About properties.