The Simpsons is a pop-cultural paradox. The show retains its irreverence, while its broad commercial appeal should allow Fox marketing executives to leave the franchise on autopilot. Instead, to generate interest in The Simpsons Movie, Fox launched its second proprietary Simpsons site last year, simpsonsmovie.com. Ahead of the movie’s release, the site’s visitor-count averaged 118% growth in May and June. Meanwhile, traffic to the established site, thesimpsons.com, dropped by 50% in June.

There is more to this than textbook market cannibalization. Together the sites had 340,000 visitors in May, but lost 38% of that traffic into June. So, where are they going? Further, should Fox invest in winning them back?

In the past 90 days, 18% of traffic to the two sites came from search, and most of those search-visitors (68%) arrived through any of the top-10 search terms. Those same terms also led some would-be Simpsons visitors to other sites. These sites included internet behemoths, like YouTube and MySpace, as well as reference sites, like Wikipedia, IMDB and the fan-run Simpsons Archive (SNPP).

But from April to June, visitor counts to Wikipedia and SNPP dropped 4% and 12% respectively, while IMDB’s traffic stayed flat. However, for a sampling of Simpsons-related content on IMDB and Wikipedia, traffic actually grew in that period. Wikipedia saw a 6% increase in such traffic, while IMDB saw a 22% increase in the same. On Wikipedia, traffic to Simpsons content, as a fraction of overall traffic, rose from 0.21% in April to 0.25% in June. Although it seems miniscule, this represents a 19% increase in Wikipedia’s “Simpsons Ratio.” IMDB saw a 10% increase in that same ratio.

Though not exhaustive, this analysis provides a better view of The Simpsons true online presence. Simpsons fans do not express their devotion by exclusively surfing to Fox-approved content. Instead, they visit Wikipedia to confirm that Ned Flanders’ Hispanic cousin is named José Flanders. They visit IMDB to learn that the voices behind Homer, Krusty and Mayor Quimby are all Dan Castellaneta. And forwarding a Simpsons clip from YouTube will always lower one’s chance of embarrassment. In that light, Fox never even lost these Simpsons fans.

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