SinglesNet.com the Top Visited Dating Website Last Week

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SinglesNet.com the Top Visited Dating Website Last Week

Visits to Dating websites have increased 26 percent YoY

NEW YORK, NY – February 13, 2008 - The market share of U.S. visits to the Dating category increased 26 percent for the week ending Feb. 9, 2008, compared to the same week in 2007, Hitwise reported today. The most-visited website within the Dating category for last week was Singlesnet.com which received 14 percent of all the U.S. visits to the category.

Top 5 Dating Websites ranked by Market Share of U.S. Visits for the week ending Feb. 9, 2008
Rank	Name	Domain	U.S. Visits w/e Feb. 9, 2008
1	Singlesnet	www.singlesnet.com	14.45%
2	Plentyoffish.com	www.plentyoffish.com	10.64%
3	eHarmony	www.eharmony.com	6.07%
4	TRUE	www.true.com	6.02%
5	Yahoo! Personals	personals.yahoo.com	5.70%
Note - the Hitwise data featured is based on U.S. market share of visits, which is the percentage of online traffic to the domain or category, from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. Hitwise measures more than 1 million unique websites on a daily basis, including sub-domains of larger websites. Hitwise categorizes websites into industries on the basis of subject matter and content, as well as market orientation and competitive context. The market share of visits percentage does not include traffic for all sub-domains of certain websites which are reported on separately.
Source: Hitwise

Other top Dating websites for last week included Plentyoffish.com which received 11 percent of the U.S. visits followed by eHarmony.com who received six percent of visits as did TRUE.com. Plentyoffish.com posted the largest year-over-year traffic growth among the top five websites within the Dating category with an 87 percent increase in U.S. visits.

“Each year we see people trying to find love online after the holidays and meet someone new in time for Valentine’s Day,” said Heather Dougherty, research director, Hitwise. “This January brought a higher influx of traffic than past years and the users are spending more time interacting on the dating websites looking for potential mates.”

Average Session Time

The average visit time for the Dating category during the week ending Feb. 9, 2008, was 17 minutes and 7 seconds, up from 14 minutes and 5 seconds, for the same week during the previous year. For the week ending Feb. 9, 2008, the average time spent on Plentyoffish.com led among the top five dating websites with users spending an average of 21 minutes and 31 seconds on the website. The average visit time on the free dating site increased 31% from the week ending Feb. 10, 2007.

Average U.S. Time Spent for the week ending Feb. 9, 2008 (in minutes & seconds) among the top % visited Dating websites
Rank	Name	Domain	Avg. Visit Time	Y-on-Y Change
1	Plentyoffish.com	www.plentyoffish.com	0:21:31	31%
2	eHarmony	www.eharmony.com	0:18:10	4%
3	Singlesnet	www.singlesnet.com	0:14:12	16%
4	Yahoo! Personals	personals.yahoo.com	0:13:04	76%
5	TRUE	www.true.com	0:12:49	4%
Note - data is based on the average U.S. time spent from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. Hitwise measures more than 1 million unique websites on a daily basis, including sub-domains of larger websites. Hitwise categorizes websites into industries on the basis of subject matter and content, as well as market orientation and competitive context.
Source: Hitwise

New and Returning Visitors

For the week ending Feb. 9, 2008, True.com received 26 percent of its share of traffic from new visitors. Among the top five dating websites by market share, Yahoo! Personals and Singlesnet followed with 15 and 13 percent, respectively, of new traffic that has not visited during the previous month.

Market Share of U.S. Traffic from New and Returning Visitors for the week ending Feb. 9, 2008 (in minutes & seconds) among top 5 Dating Websites
Rank	Name	Domain	New	Returning
1	Plentyoffish.com	www.plentyoffish.com	36%	64%
2	eHarmony	www.eharmony.com	12%	88%
3	Singlesnet	www.singlesnet.com	13%	87%
4	Yahoo! Personals	personals.yahoo.com	15%	85%
5	TRUE	www.true.com	26%	74%
Note - a returning visitor is defined as a user that has visited the site in the past 30 days from the Hitwise sample of 10 million U.S. Internet users. Hitwise measures more than 1 million unique websites on a daily basis, including sub-domains of larger websites. Hitwise categorizes websites into industries on the basis of subject matter and content, as well as market orientation and competitive context.
Source: Hitwise

About Hitwise

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,400 clients around the world with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise’s patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into an easy to use, web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement and report on a range of online marketing programs.

Hitwise, a subsidiary of Experian (FTS: EXPN) www.experiangroup.com operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.

For up to date analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence-Analyst Weblogs at http://weblogs.hitwise.com and the Hitwise Data Center at www.hitwise.com/datacenter.