A “MapQuest Advocate” left a comment on my post about Google Maps closing the gap with MapQuest suggesting that Google Maps users are younger. I thought the assumption was interesting and worth checking. In fact, our data shows that in the four weeks to 9th February 2007, US visitors to Google Maps were OLDER than those on MapQuest. This surprised me too – so I did some digging.
In the past four weeks, nearly one quarter (24.19%) of US visitors to Google Maps were over the age of 55. Google Maps users were 10% more likely to be over the age of 55 than average for the US online population. The age group accounting for the largest share of visits to Google Maps was 55+.

Compare this to MapQuest where those aged 35-44 comprise the largest share of visits, accounting for 21.99% of US visits in the past four weeks. Close behind were those aged 25-34 year olds making up 21.80% of visits followed by those aged 55+ at 21.76%. US Internet users aged 25-44 are more likely to be on MapQuest than average for the online population.
But why? I will do a follow up post tomorrow to flesh this out in more detail. But let me give you the top line finding. Yahoo! Search skews younger than Google.com. Google Maps gets more of its traffic from Google while MapQuest gets more from Yahoo! Search. This seems to explain MapQuest’s younger audience profile. I’ll post the details tomorrow… stay tuned.