IT'S impossible to get through the day any more without some mention of the credit crunch. But the big question that no-one has been able to answer - until now - is: what effect will it have on those who make their living via the internet?

According to analysts Hitwise (www.hitwise.com) there is good and bad news.

On the positive side, dwindling cash and rising prices mean that people are turning more and more towards the web in pursuit of a bargain.

Traffic to price comparison sites is up by around a fifth compared with the same time last year. Martin Lewis's www.moneysavingexpert.com is apparently the fastest growing site of its kind.

House and garden sites are also enjoying a boom as people try to improve their current homes rather than move.

If you operate a site offering discount vouchers, the news is even better - visits are up by a staggering 130% as people go to the likes of www.voucherheaven.com or www.vouchercodes.com in search of money-off coupons.

Likewise, searches for energy efficient products such as loft insulation and solar panels have more than doubled in the last 12 months.

Gas and electricity providers have also seen an increase in traffic, but usually because people are looking for a better deal than they enjoy with their current provider.

According to another set of figures from IMRG (www.imrg.org), 17p in every pound spent in the UK during the first half of this year was spent on the web.

Despite - or perhaps because of - the credit crunch, online retail sales were up by a respectable margin. According to the same study, 78% of people questioned said they planned to do at least half their Christmas shopping online this year.

The cloud also has a silver lining for sites like www.prosper.com, which is an online community where users lend and borrow money as an alternative to using banks or financial institutions.

Car pooling websites like www.zimride.com and www.nuride.com are big business in the US as people try to save on fuel.

Now the bad news.

If you are in the property business, online activity is beginning to mirror events in the High Street, and sluggishness is the name of the game for many.

And while investment in internet business start-ups still hasn't dried up, some are warning of tougher times ahead. Hedge funds were among the biggest investors in Silicon Valley, and the same amount of money simply isn't available any more.

As for day-to-day revenue, Rory Cellan-Jones, writing on the BBC's technology blog (www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology), points to the fact that some websites which depend on advertising for much of their revenue may lose out to bigger rivals if there is a reduction in spending.

Others have an even more depressing take on current events, including one leading blogger in the US who predicts that a failing economy will kill between 50% and 80% of start-ups within the next 18 months.

So the big question is: is this a bad time to start an online business or to begin doing more of your business online?

All the evidence would suggest that the answer is no, particularly if your customer base is young. The web has become part of daily life for millions of people, and it's no longer "new" technology.

We tend to think of Tesco as a bricks-and-mortar business, for example, but a huge number of its customers treat it as an online enterprise. The proportion of its revenue taken through www.tesco.com is increasing every day. In many cases, it's also much cheaper to set up an online business than its High Street equivalent.

Lower overheads can make a major difference to the bottom line.

In short, then, there are many worse places to be as the world battens down the hatches than on the web.

Darren Lemon is general manager of eircomNI. He can be contacted at darren.lemon@eircomni.co.uk (www.eircom.co.uk).

- In last week's Business Telegraph Web Watch was accompanied by an incorrect headshot picture of Darren Lemon.

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