Question & Answer Site Visits Up 118%, Yahoo Answers Is Clear Leader

The market share of U.S. visits to Question and Answer websites for the week ended March 15 was 118 percent more than during the equivalent week in 2007 - and over the past two years U.S. visits to the category have increased 889 percent (Feb. ‘08 vs. Feb. ‘06), Hitwise said (via MarketingCharts).

Among the findings (see top 5 Q&A sites as of mid-March):

• The most-visited website in the Questions and Answers category last week was Yahoo Answers (answers.yahoo.com), which received 74.05 percent of the market share of U.S. visits.
• Wiki.Answers.com was second, receiving 18.35 percent of visits, followed by Answerbag.com, which received 4.42 percent of visits.
• WikiAnswers, launched in June 2007, increased its U.S. visits 125 percent from the week ended June 9, 2007 to March 15, 2008.

“Online users are increasingly seeking advice from question-and-answer websites that leverage shared knowledge contributed across a community of experts and enthusiasts,” said Heather Dougherty, research director, Hitwise. “The popularity of user-generated media has helped to establish a category for social knowledge where consumers can obtain answers from a single aggregated source developed through others’ asking similar questions.”

Average Time Spent and Demographics

(See table of amount of time spent on Q&A websites.)

• Females accounted for 52 percent of U.S. visits to the top five Question and Answer websites for the week ended March 15, 2008.
• The plurality of visits, 24 percent, came from users age 35-44, followed by users age 25-34 (21 percent).
• The average visit time among the top five Question and Answers websites increased 44 percent (comparing the week ended March 15 2008 and the week ended March 17, 2007.
• Yahoo Answers led among the top five websites, with users spending an average of 9 minutes and 9 seconds on the site.

New and Returning Visitors

(See table of new and returning visitors to Q&A sites.)

• Yahoo Answers received 52 percent of its share of traffic from new visitors (those who had not visited the previous month) during the week ended March 15.
• WikiAnswers.com and Answerbag followed with 76 percent and 87 percent, respectively, of new traffic
• Askville received the highest amount of new traffic - 93 percent.