POST-GAZETTE.COM IS THE LOCAL CHOICE FOR NEWS
More than 2 million unique visitors hit online news site in July

PITTSBURGH – August 23, 2004 – As the appetite for online news increases, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Web site, post-gazette.com, has experienced a significant rise in online traffic, reinforcing its status as the leading local site.

In July, post-gazette.com logged a record 2 million unique visitors—distinct computers accessing the site—according to web analytics from 24/7 Real Media. This represents a 33 percent increase from the same time last year and has more than tripled since 2001.

“Our site allows visitors to have the most up-to-date news and information about what is happening in their community,” said Debra Alward, Director of Interactive Media at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “The increase in visitors shows that more and more people in this region are turning to the Web as their leading source of news, and we are fulfilling the demand for online information.”

The average post-gazette.com visitor represents a younger, more educated and more affluent demographic for this market. Seventy-five percent of the post-gazette.com audience is under age 45, 60 percent have an individual income of $50,000 or more and 64 percent have at least a college degree, according to Media Audit. Users visit the site frequently, between five to seven times a week and several times each day.

Less than half of post-gazette.com content is in the paper’s print edition on any given day, and the site includes a constant update of breaking news, plus sports, business news, entertainment, classifieds and job postings. July’s traffic reports show that about one third of the pages served in July were related to news and about one quarter to sports.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is Western Pennsylvania’s largest newspaper and market leader, reaching more than one million readers every week. Since 1997, post-gazette.com has been an online news resource for the region. The Post-Gazette has served the Pittsburgh community, its readers and advertisers as the region’s indispensable source of news, advertising and information for more than two centuries.