Porn - bigger than google - official

Well if nothing else, the above headline should please those giving out advice on search engine optimisation (as the below will show).

I've just come out of a lecture from Anton Grutzmacher, head of client services, from Hitwise, a web information and usage company.

There was loads of really interesting stuff about the regional media and how they are doing in terms of website traffic.

But there was one stunning statistic which I had never seen before in 'official' terms.

We all know that online porn, also known as 'bongo' and 'grumble' is somewhat popular. But in terms of actual cast iron information I didn't know how much.

After all, the popular searches through engines like google and yahoo are ranked - but 'purient content removed' is the rider.

So we know that people are searching for Britney Spears or Pamela Anderson and loads of other stuff like ipods, but are they really in the top ten?

Well hitwise can put it in perspective - they monitor the usage of more than eight million surfers using information from internet service providers.

And the results are that 'adult' content is as popular as all the internet search engines put together.

So for everyone logging on to google or whatever as their homepage or as a search tool, there's someone shiftily finding something rather more grubby.

As to how this fits in to the debate over the future of local journalism, I'm not sure - but perhaps executives might be tempted into taking more drastic action in terms of the online content they provide!