GVU's Seventh WWW User Survey General Graphs

How You Heard About Survey

Notes:

As with all previous Surveys, most users came to the Survey because they saw a link on another web page (52.89%). This is a useful data point for those trying to increase the traffic on their own web sites--having links from other (perhaps related) sites can be very effective in drawing traffic to a site. The next most common way of coming to the survey was through banners (9.14%), then by a search engine (8.78%). Again these are techniques which other sites can easily take advantage of. Other effective means include: Usenet news (7.27%), our www-surveying mailing list which reminds users to participate (5.92%), and word-of-mouth via friends (5.6%). Approximately 14% of respondents reported hearing about the survey through "other methods" that were not included in the list of possible responses.

European respondents were more likely than US respondents to hear about the survey from a search engine and from our mailing list. Younger respondents were also more likely to rely on a search engine, while older respondents were more likely to hear about us by Usenet. Novices were more likely to find the survey from a banner or web page link, while experts were more likely to be on our mailing list, or use a search engine or printed media. There was no difference by gender.

Table of Data for All Categories

How You Heard About Survey

All

Male

USA

50+

Intermediate

9.14%

8.53%

10.13%

10.12%

4.15%

10.53%

6.22%

8.53%

11.84%

15.24%

6.11%

4.15%

5.60%

5.31%

6.07%

5.53%

5.19%

3.40%

7.26%

6.26%

2.68%

1.89%

6.83%

5.19%

Mailing List

5.92%

6.84%

4.45%

4.82%

13.65%

3.24%

3.40%

7.33%

5.44%

1.30%

6.65%

13.65%

Printed Media

2.46%

2.70%

2.08%

1.88%

7.42%

2.11%

2.35%

2.66%

1.86%

3.19%

2.46%

7.42%

2.66%

3.12%

1.93%

2.35%

5.79%

8.00

1.30%

2.72%

3.06%

1.58%

0.57%

2.59%

5.79%

Search Engine

8.78%

7.62%

10.61%

8.25%

13.65%

15.40%

14.32%

7.57%

4.34%

7.37%

10.69%

13.65%

Usenet News

7.27%

7.33%

7.17%

7.39%

7.86%

4.86%

4.02%

7.64%

10.19%

7.75%

6.39%

7.86%

52.89%

53.10%

52.56%

53.88%

44.21%

56.24%

55.85%

50.32%

56.57%

59.81%

53.14%

44.21%

Other Sources

13.82%

14.33%

13.00%

14.55%

8.16%

12.48%

12.70%

14.46%

13.49%

13.26%

12.78%

8.16%

For more information or to submit comments:
send e-mail to www-survey@cc.gatech.edu.

GVU's WWW Surveying Team
Graphics, Visualization, & Usability Center
College of Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA 30332-0280