The Irish Times web site, ireland.com, recorded an increase in traffic of almost 70 per cent during the 12 months to last October, according to the most recent audit.
The electronic arm of the Audit Bureau of Circulations, ABC Electronic, recorded a total of 10.2 million page impressions, or web page accesses, for October 1999.
This figure compares with page impressions of just over six million for The Irish Times web site in October 1998 and 7.2 million for March 1999.
Some 668,000 "unique users" were recorded for October. This refers to the number of different people who visited the site during the month.
ireland.com, which was launched a year ago this week, incorporates the online edition of The Irish Times and a number of stand-alone sites covering breaking news, sports, business, technology, jobs, entertainment, tourist information, weather, the Northern Ireland peace process and the Irish language.
Welcoming the figures, the editor of The Irish Times, Mr Conor Brady, said: "This very impressive advance in our online readership has to be seen in tandem with the steady circulation growth of our print editions. Whether our readers access us on newsprint or on screen they are receiving the same core editorial services."
The managing director of Irish Times Ltd, Mr Nick Chapman, said he was "very encouraged by the tremendous growth in usage of ireland.com. This Irish Times service is performing extremely well against increasingly fierce competition. "These latest results strengthen our determination to go on investing strongly in Irish Times Internet services in the belief that The Irish Times must become a strongly branded news and information service provider operating across a range of media."
Mr Seamus Conaty, managing director of The Irish Times New Media Division, expected "further significant increases as we expand our products and services and also thanks to the availability of exciting new publishing technologies.
"Also, our new co-location servers in London and New York will improve speed of access."
Co-location means the same Web pages can be accessed on several servers in different parts of the world, depending on where the user is.
"Our bandwidth during the audit period was two megabits, which undoubtedly had a negative impact on our traffic," Mr Conaty explained. "With co-location our aggregate capacity has increased tenfold."
ireland.com provides a range of services including free Web-based email with addresses @ireland.com, personalised TV listings, and an Irish ancestors site.
ireland.com has consistently been Ireland's most visited web site since it was originally launched as The Irish Times on the Web in 1994.