Traffic Up on Gasoline Price Web Sites

DENVER (AP) - The higher gasoline prices go, the more money business Web entrepreneur Jason Toews makes.

He started an Internet site, GasBuddy.com, in 2000 to track daily [tag]gasoline prices[/tag] using volunteers to e-mail what they find. “Hardly anybody ever used it,” Toews, of Brooklyn Park, Minn., recalled.

By 2004, 1 million people were visiting the site daily, although the numbers dropped when prices went down.

But at the pace hits were being recorded Thursday, the site was likely to break its record of 4 million visitors, Toews said. As gasoline prices have risen, so have the hits on his site and another, GasPriceWatch.com.

“We have had to buy more servers and it looks like we will need more,” he said.

GasBuddy.com offers information from 180 locations in the U.S. and Canada, including every major city. The site said the average price nationally in the U.S. was $3.22 for unleaded Thursday afternoon, compared with $2.86 a year ago.

Brad Proctor, founder of GasPriceWatch.com in Centerville, Ohio, said his site has added prices for ethanol, [tag]biodiesel[/tag], truck diesel and ultra-low-sulfur diesel. Hits on his site have doubled. As many eight people log in every second during peak periods, he said…… Full Story