Finding God Online
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
SimplyJosh.com has now moved to DownloadYouthMinistry.com - follow this link to visit the new site with new posts everyday!
All the more reason to make sure your church/ministry website is great. A solid article from Time I missed a couple months ago that was interesting. Here's a clip:
JGIf we have in fact lost our religion, search engines would seem to be the most logical place to look for evidence. On average, religious websites receive 36% of their traffic from the likes of Google, Yahoo! Search and MSN Search. Examining the data behind the search terms shows that some denominations have embraced the Internet and search marketing as a way to reach out to those searching for answers. Take the Mormons for example. The Church of Latter Day Saints purchases sponsored listing advertisements on Google. Searches for "bible," "free bible," and "Jesus Christ" display listings for LDS.org, the church's official website. It's no coincidence that Internet users in the state of Utah are four times more likely to visit a religious website than the Internet population as a whole. (For those of you keeping score, Vermont ranks as the state with residents least likely to visit religious sites.)
If Internet patterns and search behavior are indicators of religious interest, maybe a better question is: what are we looking for when we search for religion? The answer depends on denomination.
Searches leading to Roman Catholic websites reveal a fascination with saints: from the generic query "saints" to the religious ties to what most of us now consider secular holidays, "St. Valentine's Day and "St. Patrick's Day." Contrast that with the search terms used by seekers of Protestant and other Christian sites. The majority of search terms concentrate on bible study ("bible," biblical verses" and "bible online") and evangelical personalities ("Joel Osteen" and "Joyce Meyer"). Information seekers on the Jewish religion are different still, with a mixture of subjects such as Jewish heritage, humor and bio-ethical issues such as "cloning" and "right to die."
What's most telling how the nature of religious searches has evolved. If there were a decline in our spiritual conscience, surely it would show in the way religious searches have changed over time. Over the past two years, searches to religious sites have shown no perceptible change. What has changed is the plethora of new activities and information, like MySpace and YouTube, vying for our attention. It's not that we're losing our religion, it's that we've gained many more distractions.
posted by Unknown @ 2:43 PM |
SimplyJosh.com has now moved to MoreThanDodgeball.com - follow this link to visit the new site with new posts everyday!
