F9/11 Ignites Web Traffic, Theater Tix, Searches
The controversial film 'Fahrenheit 9/11' sparked interest all over the Web, sending traffic to related sites soaring in the period surrounding opening day.
Michael Moore’s controversial and award-winning documentary about Sept. 11 and the events leading to the war on Iraq not only drove moviegoers into theaters during opening week, the film spiked traffic to related Web sites.
According to comScore, fahrenheit911.com, michaelmoore.com, and ticket site f911tix.com all registered significant visitor increases in the week of the film’s release. On June 25, 80,000 unique visitors logged onto f911tix.com to secure their seats for opening day, spiking again to 51,000 on the following Sunday.
| Daily Visitors to Sites Related to Fahrenheit 9/11, U.S. |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thurs. 6/24/04 |
Fri. 6/25/04 |
Sat. 6/26/04 |
Sun. 6/27/04 |
Mon. 6/28/04 |
|
| fahrenheit911.com | 44,000 | 85,000 | 24,000 | 23,000 | 40,000 |
| michaelmoore.com | 33,000 | 62,000 | 35,000 | 51,000 | 101,000 |
| f911tix.com | 24,000 | 80,000 | 35,000 | 51,000 | 15,000 |
| Percentage Change vs. Corresponding Day in the Prior Week, U.S. |
|||||
| fahrenheit911.com | 10% | 270% | 0% | 28% | 67% |
| michaelmoore.com | 3% | 210% | 17% | 76% | 115% |
| f911tix.com | -31% | 248% | 59% | 410% | -46% |
| Source: comScore Networks | |||||
The weekend buzz sent more than 100,000 Internet users to Michael Moore’s site on the Monday following the day of the release, and both comScore and Hitwise measured bigger traffic increases to michaelmoore.com than the fahrenheit911.com site on some days.
According to Hitwise, michaelmoore.com experienced a 418 percent increase in market share of U.S visits between June 12 and June 26, and it jumped to number one in the Hitwise Politics category on June 25, 2004.
Traffic to fahrenheit911.com increased U.S. market share by 343 percent between June 12 and June 26. The official movie site claimed the top spot in the Hitwise Movie category on the film’s opening day and it captured 1.06 percent of U.S. visits to movie sites. Comparatively, the official Harry Potter site captured 1.05 percent.
While the film doesn’t open in the UK until July 9, moviegoers are assuaging their anticipation online. UK market share of visits to michaelmoore.com have increased by 172 percent since June 11th, with the site jumping to the sixth spot in the Hitwise Politics category on June 25, taking 2.3 percent of visits.
Other notable UK traffic stats: for the week ending June 26, 17.43 percent of UK visitors to Michael Moore’s site left to visit fahrenheit911.com; and for the 12 weeks prior to June 26, “Michael Moore” was the sixth most searched for key phrase among users within the Politics category.
More than 50 percent of U.S. visitors to fahrenheit911.com left the official movie site to go directly to f911tix.com, where they were able to purchase tickets for the film, according to Hitwise. Also, more than 30 percent of people visiting michaelmoore.com came from search engines and directories.
“Fahrenheit 9/11” was at the top of the list of gaining queries for the week ending June 28, according to Google, jumping from the number 10 position the week prior. The search term “Michael Moore” appeared in the number four spot, never even registering the week before.
Searches for Michael Moore were up 80 percent for the week ending June 26, 2004, according to the Lycos 50, where Moore appeared at #47.
