Duke was a winner in this year's NCAA men's basketball tournament not only on the court but also online.
The university's official Athletic Department website saw a surge that coincided with the basketball team's dance through March Madness. More than 740,000 unique visitors generated over 4.2 million page views in March, breaking the site's one-month record in both categories. That was more than a million more page views than the site received the previous March, in which Duke won two games before bowing out in the Sweet 16.
A report by Compete, a private web analytics company, shows the public searching for "Duke basketball" more often than for any other university team this past March, followed by similar searches for the Kansas and Kentucky basketball teams. Those three teams, along with Syracuse University, shared top seeds in this year's NCAA tournament. The University of Connecticut women's team also ranked high on the search list.
Traffic to GoDuke.com typically doubles during basketball season, cresting with the post-season tournaments. Even before the March surge, the site had seen a sustained 20 percent increase in traffic following a July 1, 2009 redesign that improved the navigation and editorial experience for visitors, said Rob McKinney, the site's director of operations.
"We're obviously pleased with the increase in traffic since last summer's redesign," McKinney said. "It certainly helps when the basketball teams make deep runs in the NCAA Tournament. The great news is traffic was significantly higher before March as well. Our focus moving forward is to continue to make GoDuke.com a year-round destination for Blue Devil fans."