Nielsen//NetRatings (Nasdaq: NTRT), a global leader in Internet media and market research, announced today that Web traffic to pet-related sites grew 115 percent in March over the previous month, from 9.1 million unique visitors to 19.5 million. Menu Foods, North America’s largest pet food supplier, announced a product recall on March 16th after receiving complaints in the United States about renal failure in pets who had consumed the food. Pet owners flocked online to find out which products were affected – MenuFoods.com fell below reporting cutoff in February, but drew a remarkable 12.8 million unique visitors in March.

Whereas Menu Foods was virtually unknown to pet food consumers before the recall, already-trusted household brands also saw significant growth to their Web sites in March. IAMS.com went from below reporting cutoff in February to 2.4 million unique visitors in March, and Purina grew 30 percent from a unique audience of 1.5 million to 2.0 million. Traffic to pet information and retail sites also experienced strong growth.

“Consumers have come to rely on company Web sites to provide them with up-to-date information on their products and services, especially in urgent situations,” said Michael Pond, media analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. “From Jet Blue’s ‘Passenger Bill of Rights’ to ‘Iams Promise,’ businesses are leveraging their online presence to communicate directly with customers and re-establish trust after a crisis. This is especially important for companies that rely on brand recognition and brand loyalty; for them, engaging consumers in an online conversation is a critical step in recovering from a serious misstep.”

Seniors’ Online Behavior Most Affected by March Pet Food Recall
Among demographic groups, visitors age 55 and older saw the largest increase in unique audience composition percent among pet-related Web sites, growing 5.3 percentage points from 20.7 percent of the audience roll-up in February to 26.0 percent in March. Seniors who otherwise might not have visited pet-related Web sites were motivated to go online to find out the latest recall information. Increases in audience composition were also seen among middleclass households with an income between $50,000-$75,000 and among men; these groups grew 3.7 and 3.6 percentage points in March, respectively.

Pet Food Search Terms

“Pet food recall” was the most popular pet food search term with 1.4 million search queries in March; it was the 75th most popular search term overall. “Dog food recall” and “Menu Foods” were the second and third most popular pet food search terms, with 1.2 million and 485,000 search queries, respectively. Total pet food-related search queries for the month (among the top 5,000 search terms) totaled 4.9 million.

“Nearly five million search queries related to the pet food recall demonstrate how heavily consumers rely on search providers for gathering critical information,” said Pond. “In addition to providing easily accessible content on their own Web sites, companies who want to communicate with their customers during a crisis should also consider buying relevant key words to drive traffic to the right place.”