Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, is steadily exceeding the popularity of other commercial reference sites and encyclopedias.

According to Hitwise, a leading online competitive intelligence service, Wikipedia's share of U.S. Internet visits (www.wikipedia.org) placed it at number 13 in the Hitwise Education - Reference category at the beginning of 2004. However, by the week ending April 16, 2005, Wikipedia's total Internet share of visits skyrocketed by 618 percent, making it the second most visited reference website overall.

"The Wikipedia phenomenon is similar to Linux, the open-source computer-server software that has been endorsed by several giant IT corporations and is storming proprietary versions," said Bill Tancer, vice president of research, Hitwise. "It's fascinating how a single portal, operated by a nonprofit foundation, can garner such grassroots enthusiasm and so many volunteer experts across such a wide variety of subjects."

While Wikipedia is now the highest trafficked online encyclopedia, its traffic levels are just shy of Dictionary.com (www.dictionary.com), the highest trafficked site in the Hitwise Education - Reference category for the week ending April 16, 2005. Following in the category are commercial sites such as About.com, Answers.com, Encarta (www.encarta.com), Merriam-Webster OnLine (www.m-w.com) and Free Translation (www.freetranslation.com). (See visitor trend graph below).

Searches

With 536,246 ongoing articles and 1,540,695 pages (source: Wikipedia April 22, 2005), Wikipedia's massive pool of consumer-generated content is increasingly becoming a magnet for consumer searches. Of sites that were delivered traffic from search engines in June 2004, Wikipedia ranked 146 in popularity. In September 2004 it jumped in the ranking to 93; 71 in December 2004; and in March 2005 was the 33rd most popular site receiving visits from search engines.

"With critical mass attained and linking and charitable infrastructure support on the way from such companies as Yahoo! and Google, Wikipedia has the potential to keep growing," said Tancer. "Considering the site's steady growth since 2001, it appears to be much more than a fly-by-night viral fad. It will be interesting to see how Wikipedia and similar Wiki ventures play out."

News and Detailed Reference Material

An analysis of search terms delivering traffic to Wikipedia indicate that people visit the site for a wide array of information -- from major news topics, to trivial information to the most esoteric. Some of the most popular terms for the four weeks ending April 16, 2005 were: 'terri schiavo', 'pope john paul ii' and 'amityville horror'. Some of the more obscure terms were: 'grunge', 'mccarthyism' and 'occam's razor'.

Affluents from Both Sexes

Wikipedia's audience was evenly split between males and females for the four weeks ending April 16, 2005. However, the audience was highly skewed toward younger Internet users, with 18-24 year-olds being 50 percent more likely to visit. The propensity of Internet users in different states to visit Wikipedia was mostly average, however users with household incomes over $150K were 34 percent more likely to visit.


Trend in marketshare of Visits to Reference websites Jan 2004 -- April 2004