Online porn sites get about three times more visits than the top Web search engines, including market leader Google Inc., a research firm said Thursday.
Web sites categorized as "adult" accounted for about 18.8 percent of all Internet visits by U.S. users in the week ending May 29. Meanwhile, the category that contains search engines dominated by Yahoo, MSN and Google, accounted for about 5.5 percent, according to Hitwise Inc., a California-based company that tracks Web use. During that time, Google garnered 2.7 percent of all Web visits while Yahoo Search and MSN Search received 1.7 percent and 1.1 percent respectively, Bill Tancer, vice president of research at Hitwise, told Reuters.
Other large Hitwise categories include "Entertainment" at 8.0 percent, "Business and Finance" at 7.4 percent and "Shopping and Classifieds" at 7 percent. Google is moving toward an initial public offering that is expected to be a blockbuster. The three leading search providers fall into a subcategory Hitwise calls "Search Engines and Directories," which covers 1,944 Web search and directory sites, which were not included in the top search category.
News source: CNN
