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• 2008
• Recipe Websites Recession Proof, Urban Households Still Dining Out

Recipe Websites Recession Proof, Urban Households Still Dining Out

Taste.com.au receives greatest share of traffic to Lifestyle and Reference websites week ending 5/11/2008; Food and Beverage chains capitalise on consumer search for vouchers.

Melbourne - 20 November, 2008 - Hitwise, the leading online competitive intelligence service, today revealed that the Food and Beverage - Lifestyle and Reference industry, which includes recipe websites, grew 36.43% in visits week ending 15/11/2008 compared to the same week last year by Australian Internet users. While the economic downturn might be prompting some households to do more home cooking, Hitwise also measured an increase in visits of 8.85% to Restaurants and Catering websites, suggesting that not all households have clinched their spending on eating out.

Hitwise Lifestyle Demographics data also indicates that urban households are more likely than average to visits Restaurant and Catering websites. There were three main household segments identified from a mixture of income levels, including, Mosaic Groups 'Young Ambition' - educated and high-earning young singles and sharers in the inner suburbs, 'Metro Multiculture' - households in medium to high density areas with much cultural diversity, and 'Learners and Earners' - students and professionals living in high density, lower cost suburbs.

The leading website amongst Food and Beverage - Lifestyle and Reference websites was Taste.com.au, accounting for 19.91% share of visits for the week ending 15/11/2008, followed by Best Recipes (www.bestrecipes.com.au) which attracted 5.58% share. While online publishers have been increasingly promoting food-related content, Hitwise search data suggests that growth to the industry is consumer driven with 98.12% of search terms derived from organic listings.

In the Restaurants and Catering industry users were drawn to both budget outlets and high-end dining guides. Domino's Pizza Australia was the leading website for the week ending 15/11/2008 accounting for 10.38% share of visits, followed by
ninemsn - yourRestaurants with 9.34% share. Menulog, an aggregated delivery service, ranked fourth with 6.46% share.

Consumers search for food 'vouchers' online

Several food and beverage chains have capitalised on consumer search for vouchers, with 'dominos vouchers', appearing as the top variation on 'vouchers' for the 4 weeks ending 15/11/2008. Other brands included, 'pizza hut vouchers' eagle boys vouchers', 'hungry jacks vouchers', 'subway vouchers' and 'kfc vouchers'. Catering websites were active on paid search campaigns, with 7.52% of search terms derived from paid traffic.

"The down economy will mean that consumers will look for even more ways to be efficient with their spending on leisure activities. Just as budget restaurant chains have been active in promoting their voucher schemes online, high-end outlets should consider what value programs they offer to compete for tightened disposable spend", says Sandra Hanchard, Hitwise Senior Analyst.

For more information please email press.au@hitwise.comor contact Rheika Tompkins on +61 (0)3 8530 2400.

About Hitwise

Hitwise is the leading online competitive intelligence service. Only Hitwise provides its 1,500 clients around the world with daily insights on how their customers interact with a broad range of competitive websites, and how their competitors use different tactics to attract online customers.

Since 1997, Hitwise has pioneered a unique, network-based approach to Internet measurement. Through relationships with ISPs around the world, Hitwise's patented methodology anonymously captures the online usage, search and conversion behavior of 25 million Internet users. This unprecedented volume of Internet usage data is seamlessly integrated into an easy to use, web-based service, designed to help marketers better plan, implement and report on a range of online marketing programs.

Hitwise, a subsidiary of Experian (FTS: EXPN) www.experiangroup.com operates in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. More information about Hitwise is available at www.hitwise.com.

For up to date analysis of online trends, please visit the Hitwise Intelligence-Analyst Weblogs and the Hitwise Data Center.