Thanks to a new unauthorized biography by Andrew Morton, Tom Cruise’s belief in Scientology has been the focus of many recent headlines. Last week, videos appeared online with Tom Cruise discussing his beliefs and work as a Scientologist, which quickly captured the interest of many Internet users. While the video was removed from YouTube and many websites, Gawker Media eventually hosted a copy which quickly translated into an increase in traffic from the curious public.

After posting a copy of the video, the market share of visits to Gawker.com increased 178% on Tuesday, January 15th from the previous day. Traffic also increased another 72% on the next day (from Tuesday), where traffic peaked surrounding the event, although the website has posted some follow-up stories to the video. The Scientology website also experienced a spike in traffic, where the market share increased 450% on Tuesday, January 15th from the previous day.

Searches on the term ‘scientology’ increased 750% for the week ending Jan. 19th compared to the previous week. The term ‘tom cruise scientology video’ ranked third among searches including the keyword. Thanks to the refusal to remove the video, Gawker trailed only MSN last week (the week ending Jan. 19th) for the top websites receiving traffic from the search term ‘tom cruise scientology video’.

Heather Dougherty

Heather Dougherty is Director, Research at Hitwise. This piece originally appeared on Hitwise's analyst blog here.

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