Predictions about the end of the world tomorrow, May 21, 2011 (not to be confused with the potential end of the world in 2012, predicted by the Mayan calendar) from Harold Camping, the president of the Family Radio, have been received with both skepticism along with believers working toward preparedness. Camping’s followers have been promoting the impending doomsday on park benches, billboards and through caravans of recreation vehicles, along with Robert Fitzpatrick, the author of The Doomsday Code, who spent $140,000 on ads in subways and bus shelters to help warn the general public of the impending doomsday.
Camping’s predictions have caused the market share of daily visits to Family Radio to jump 215% for Tuesday, May 17th as compared to Tuesday, April 19th and ranked 13th among websites within the Lifestyles – Religion category, up from 56th one month ago. On Tuesday, 66% of visitors to Family Radio were new to the website or had not visited in the past 30 days.

These predictions have garnered broad interest as May 21st draws nearer, searches for terms related to the May 21st end of the world predictions jumped 197% on Saturday, May 14th as compared to the previous day and continued to sustain the growth.

A website called the eBible Fellowship received the highest share of search clicks from terms related to the May 21st end of the world predictions, followed by The Huffington Post. Interestingly, the 5th ranked website, May21-2011.com has deployed a paid search campaign to capture visits and receive top positions for terms such as ‘may 21 judgement day’ and ‘end of the world’.