Porn Pages Reach 260 Million

An 1,800 percent growth rate over five years is typically considered an online success story, but in this case, the statistic pertains to Web porn. N2H2 found that the number of pornography related Internet pages grew from 14 million in 1998 to roughly 260 million in 2003.

This data comes on the heels of news that Microsoft Corp. is closing down chat rooms in 28 countries, in efforts to stem the presence of sexual predators of children, and Internet Filter Review found that the average age a child is first exposed to pornography online is 11 years old. Nearly all (90 percent) of kids aged 8-16 have viewed porn online, mostly while doing homework.

N2H2 identified an additional 28 million porn pages during the month of July alone, and the content filtering company expects the trend to continue, particularly since the industry is so profitable. In fact, Internet Filter Review finds that Internet pornography accounts for $2.5 billion of the $57 billion worldwide market.

Internet Filter Review estimates that there are 4.2 million porn Web sites — 12 percent of the total amount of sites — allowing access to 72 million worldwide visitors annually. One-quarter of total daily search engine requests, or 68 million, are for pornographic material, where 40 million Americans are regular visitors.

Traffic measurements from Hitwise found that, not surprisingly, males made up the bulk of the visits to the sites in the U.S. adult category (includes all forms of adult erotica and X-rated sites) during August 2003 — 65 percent compared to 35 percent — and the average session time was just under 5 minutes. Nearly 72 percent access the explicit sites at home, while 28 percent dare to view the content in the workplace.