Pornhub Reports 1.5 Million “Coronavirus” Searches & Traffic Growth Amid Outbreak
In light of the global coronavirus pandemic, many people are practicing social distancing and self-quarantining. For many businesses, this disruption in daily life is proving to be worrying, not Pornhub, though. The adult site is reporting more views than normal, with many coronavirus-related searches in the mix.
On March 12, the popular adult website published some statistics, shedding light on the pandemic’s effect on its web traffic. “As the coronavirus spread around the world, Pornhub’s traffic did grow,” Pornhub confirmed. Notably, searches containing “coronavirus” and “corona virus” or “covid” have spiked in the last month, peaking at 1.5 million on March 5.
Pornhub’s traffic has grown especially in affected areas. In Italy, after the country closed its borders and imposed a national quarantine, daily traffic started to increase and is now up 14 percent. Some of the upticks in traffic might be due to Pornhub gifting Italian users free premuim subscriptions.
The site also reports a change in visiting times. For instance, “on March 11, Pornhub’s worldwide traffic 5.7 percent higher than usual for a Wednesday.” Pornhub suspects these changes are due to the surge of remote work, as “people who did not need to commute to work the next day stayed up later and slept in longer than they normally would.”
