Dublin, 7th July 2000
ireland.com records 230 per cent 12-month growth

ireland.com recorded an increase of over 230 per cent in traffic in the 12 months to last March, according to ABC ELECTRONIC audit figures just released.

Latest audited traffic figures also show that ireland.com is the first site in the country to attract over one million individual users in a one-month period.

The site recorded 16.7 million page impressions, up 232 per cent for the same period last year. Approximately 35% of ireland.com traffic is Irish. Audited figures for Irish traffic will be available in the next few weeks.

The number of individual users accessing the site also doubled to 1.16 million. This compares to 585,000 users in March of 2000 and 668,000 in October 1999.

ireland.com remains the busiest Irish website. The figures represent an increase of 9.5 million page impressions in a twelve-month period, jumping from 7.2 million page impressions in March of 1999 and 10.2 million last October.

Managing director of Irish Times Ltd, Mr Nick Chapman said: "These are outstanding results and hugely encouraging. They show that ireland.com is moving strongly in the right direction and they give us the confidence to grow our investment in internet services as an essential part of our cross-media strategy for The Irish Times."

Mr Seamus Conaty, managing director of The Irish Times New Media Division paid tribute to the dedication of staff at the website, describing the figures as an "outstanding result".

Mr Conaty attributed much of the success of the site to improved speed of access: "When we launched our co-location servers in New York and London, we did expect a significant increase in traffic as we had been exceeding our previous bandwidth. But this far surpasses expectations and provides a great platform for future growth."

ireland.com now ranks fourth in terms of numbers of users - after BBC Online News, Interactive Investor International and Virgin Net - of ABC Electronic-audited sites in Britain and Ireland.

ireland.com provides a range of sites and services including a host of news, entertainment and lifestyle sites and free Web-based e-mail. Most recently, it launched an enhanced Breaking News service, a site to accompany the newspaper's revamped education supplement EL, online exam seminars and improved Irish share price services. While several new sites are planned over the coming months, sites to launch in the coming weeks include a site dedicated to the Euro 2000 championship, a site to celebrate Bloomsday, Dyoublong, and a revamped Business site.

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