While some Americans learned the news Sunday night via Twitter or the announcement from President Obama, curiosity and questions continued well into Monday. The daily visits to News & Media websites reached a three year high for the second time this year on Monday, May 2, 2011 following the announcement of the death of Osama Bin Laden. The previous peak was on March 11, 2011 from the news of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Yahoo! News ranked first among the News & Media websites on Monday, May 2, 2011 and experienced an increase of 200% in total overall visits when compared to the previous Monday. MSNBC and The Huffington Post followed, with an increase of 257% and 245%, respectively, during the same time frame. In addition to MSNBC, visits to the websites of other Broadcast Media such as CNN and ABC News also experienced triple-digit growth on Monday.

The search terms driving traffic to the News & Media category on Monday, May 2, 2011 were dominated by content surrounding the Bin Laden death, although it is interesting to note the ‘bin laden wives’ ranked first followed by ‘osama bin laden dead’. Out of the top 100 search terms, 30 were Bin Laden related, with 6 of those search queries including the term ‘photo’ or video’ as some called for additional evidence. Interest also grew for news around the Navy Seal Team 6, the secret unit involved in the operation and the mansion where it took place.