comScore Media Metrix Releases Top 50 Web Rankings for August
RESTON, Va., Sept. 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — comScore Media Metrix today released its monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at top online properties for August 2007. Education-related sites had a strong presence in this month’s rankings as schools and universities across the country began another academic year. August also saw traffic increases to lotto/sweepstakes sites as lottery jackpots reached near record highs. Humor sites gained on the strength of Comedy Central’s spike in traffic, and sports/outdoor retail sites grew in anticipation of the fall sports season.
Back to School Season Drives Traffic to Education Sites
With students and teachers heading back to the classroom in late August, education sites experienced strong growth for the month. The training and education category grew 15 percent to more than 12 million visitors, making it the top gaining category for the month. College resource site Fastweb led the category with 2.5 million visitors (up 13 percent), followed by The College Board with nearly 1.9 million visitors (up 12 percent) and Nellnet, Inc., an education planning and financing company, with 1.4 million visitors (up 11 percent). The education information category increased 8 percent to more than 63 million visitors, as Dictionary.com Sites led the category with 11.8 million visitors, followed by Answers.com (9.3 million visitors) and Pearson Education (8.6 million visitors).
Fall Sports and Football Season Drive Traffic to Retail Sports/Outdoors Sites
With the beginning of fall sports and football season, traffic to retail sports/outdoors sites increased 7 percent to more than 29 million visitors. Foot Locker Sites experienced a 15-percent gain to 4.6 million visitors to lead the category, followed by eBay Sports U.S. with 4 million visitors and DicksSportingGoods.com with 2.6 million visitors. NFL Internet Group, which includes the official NFL team sites, surged 78 percent to more than 14 million visitors, making it one of top gaining properties in August.
Near Record Jackpots Propel Traffic to Lottery Sites in August
Multi-state lotteries Mega Millions and Powerball both reached massive jackpots in August causing lotto/sweepstakes sites to rise 8 percent to more than 31 million visitors for the month. Powerball.com surged to 2.3 million visitors (up 123 percent), while Megamillions.com saw its traffic swell to 1.1 million (up 100 percent).
Comedy Central Drives Traffic Spike in Humor Category
The humor category grew 8 percent in August, reaching more than 30 million Americans. The increase was largely propelled by gains at Comedy Central from its “Indecision 2008″ coverage. National Lampoon Humor Network led the category with 5.6 million visitors, followed by Comedy Central with nearly 5 million visitors (up 105 percent) and Jokeroo Entertainment Inc. with nearly 3 million visitors (up 37 percent).
Top 50 Properties
The top 10 properties remained unchanged in August, as Yahoo! Sites topped the ranking with more than 135 million visitors. CBS Corporation experienced a 16-percent gain, lifting it 6 spots to number 24. Comcast Corporation also experienced a sizable jump, moving up seven positions to number 26 in the ranking with more than 25 million visitors. United Online enjoyed a four-position gain, drawing more than 26 million unique visitors in August.
Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking
In August, Advertising.com remained atop the Ad Focus Ranking, reaching 89 percent of the more than 181 million Americans online. Specific Media and Google both moved up within the top ten, to numbers six and seven, respectively. Adconion media group jumped seven spots to number 21, reaching 43 percent of the U.S. online population, a 7-percent increase from July. Interclick also continued its climb in the rankings, gaining four spots to number 18. Finally, Amazon.com and Walmart.com entered the ranking in August at positions 37 and 43, respectively.
TABLE 1 comScore Top 10 Gaining Properties by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors* (U.S.) August 2007 vs. July 2007 Total U.S. Home, Work and University Internet Users Source: comScore Media Metrix Total Unique Visitors (000) Rank by Unique Jul-07 Aug-07 %Change Visitors Total Internet : Total Audience 180,078 181,257 1 N/A HandHeld Entertainment 1,476 6,298 327 156 TheStreet.com Sites 2,023 4,417 118 231 NFL Internet Group 8,059 14,368 78 59 Mattel Sites 7,431 10,737 44 86 Procter & Gamble 4,668 6,132 31 164 Pearson Education 6,667 8,633 29 109 Encyclopaedia Britannica 5,042 6,195 23 160 Comcast Corporation 20,659 25,279 22 26 ABC.COM 5,046 6,135 22 162 PriceGrabber 3,863 4,691 21 212 * Ranking based on the top 250 properties in August 2007 TABLE 2 comScore Top 10 Gaining Categories by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors (U.S.) August 2007 vs. July 2007 Total U.S. Home, Work and University Internet Users Source: comScore Media Metrix Total Unique Visitors (000) Jul-07 Aug-07 %Change Total Internet : Total Audience 180,078 181,257 1 Training and Education 10,436 12,012 15 Incentives 16,509 17,885 8 Humor 27,918 30,198 8 Gay/Lesbian 2,592 2,802 8 Education – Information 58,757 63,234 8 Lotto/Sweepstakes 28,914 31,109 8 Sports/Outdoor 27,397 29,208 7 Health – Information 56,865 60,584 7 Technology – News 39,954 42,326 6 Religion 18,424 19,401 5 TABLE 3 comScore Top 50 Properties (U.S.) August 2007 Total U.S. – Home, Work and University Locations Unique Visitors (000) Source: comScore Media Metrix Unique Rank Property Visitors (000) Total Internet: Total Audience 181,257 1 Yahoo! Sites 135,251 2 Google Sites 128,544 3 Time Warner Network 124,263 4 Microsoft Sites 118,392 5 Fox Interactive Media 79,966 6 eBay 79,707 7 Amazon Sites 53,904 8 Ask Network 52,075 9 Wikipedia Sites 48,386 10 Viacom Digital 44,888 11 New York Times Digital 44,113 12 Apple Inc. 42,744 13 Weather Channel, The 38,905 14 FACEBOOK.COM 33,745 15 CNET Networks 32,490 16 Adobe Sites 31,231 17 Target Corporation 31,042 18 Gorilla Nation 30,776 19 Wal-Mart 28,510 20 AT&T, Inc. 28,501 21 Monster Worldwide 27,986 22 Expedia Inc 27,034 23 United Online, Inc 26,255 24 CBS Corporation 25,821 25 Disney Online 25,606 26 Comcast Corporation 25,279 27 Verizon Communications Corporation 25,033 28 CRAIGSLIST.ORG 23,987 29 Bank of America 23,809 30 Photobucket.com LLC 23,727 31 Shopzilla.com Sites 21,644 32 Yellowpages.com Network 21,347 33 Superpages.com Network 21,344 34 Lycos Sites 20,375 35 CareerBuilder LLC 20,202 36 Real.com Network 20,116 37 Glam Media 20,058 38 Gannett Sites 20,050 39 ARTISTdirect Network 19,989 40 ESPN 19,740 41 Travelport 18,215 42 Cox Enterprises Inc. 18,025 43 WhitePages 17,024 44 WebMD Health 16,945 45 Citysearch 16,869 46 Weatherbug Property 16,722 47 E.W. Scripps 16,501 48 Ticketmaster 16,139 49 NBC Universal 16,107 50 The Mozilla Organization 15,637 TABLE 4 comScore Ad Focus Ranking (U.S.) August 2007 Total U.S. – Home, Work and University Locations Unique Visitors (000) Source: comScore Media Metrix Unique Rank Property Visitors Reach% (000) Total Internet: Total Audience 181,257 100% 1 Advertising.com** 160,960 89% 2 ValueClick** 135,762 75% 3 Yahoo! 133,390 74% 4 Google Ad Network** 133,137 73% 5 Tribal Fusion** 128,624 71% 6 Specific Media** 125,399 69% 7 Google 120,687 67% 8 Casale Media Network** 117,118 65% 9 Blue Lithium** 115,751 64% 10 AOL Media Network 114,522 63% 11 Traffic Marketplace** 108,006 60% 12 DRIVEpm** 105,483 58% 13 MSN-Windows Live 104,207 57% 14 24/7 Real Media** 103,259 57% 15 YAHOO.COM Home Page 95,363 53% 16 AOL 92,740 51% 17 Tremor Media 92,548 51% 18 Interclick** 85,712 47% 19 CPX Interactive** 80,507 44% 20 Burst Media** 80,278 44% 21 adconion media group** 78,449 43% 22 ContextWeb** 76,634 42% 23 Centro 76,481 42% 24 PrecisionClick** 71,589 39% 25 AdBrite** 71,522 39% 26 AdDynamix.com** 70,932 39% 27 EBAY.COM 69,327 38% 28 Vibrant Media** 68,999 38% 29 MYSPACE.COM 68,392 38% 30 Gorilla Nation Media 65,678 36% 31 MSN.COM Home Page 55,045 30% 32 Mapquest 52,793 29% 33 Ask Network 52,075 29% 34 Undertone Networks** 50,890 28% 35 Business.com Network 45,527 25% 36 YOUTUBE.COM 44,894 25% 37 AMAZON.COM 43,976 24% 38 Kontera** 41,275 23% 39 EBAY.COM Home Page 40,260 22% 40 ABOUT.COM 38,320 21% 41 FACEBOOK.COM 33,745 19% 42 WEATHER.COM 29,226 16% 43 WALMART.COM 26,101 14% 44 Real Cities Network 25,668 14% 45 Disney Online 25,606 14% 46 Nick Kids & Family 25,052 14% 47 CNN 24,214 13% 48 PHOTOBUCKET.COM 23,246 13% 49 IMDB.COM 22,207 12% 50 Yellowpages.com Network 21,347 12% Reach % denotes the percentage of the total Internet population that viewed a particular entity at least once in August. For instance, Yahoo! was seen by 74 percent of the more than 181 million Internet users in August. * Entity has assigned some portion of traffic to other syndicated entities. ** Denotes an advertising network. About comScore Media Metrix
comScore Media Metrix provides industry-leading Internet audience measurement services that report details of online media usage, visitor demographics and online buying power for the home, work and university audiences across local U.S. markets and across the globe. comScore Media Metrix reports are used by financial analysts, advertising agencies, publishers and marketers. comScore Media Metrix syndicated ratings are based on industry-sanctioned sampling methodologies.
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comScore, Inc. is a global leader in measuring the digital world. This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of more than 2 million consumers who have given comScore permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behavior, including online and offline purchasing. comScore panelists also participate in survey research that captures and integrates their attitudes and intentions. Through its proprietary technology, comScore measures what matters across a broad spectrum of behavior and attitudes. comScore analysts apply this deep knowledge of customers and competitors to help clients design powerful marketing strategies and tactics that deliver superior ROI. comScore services are used by more than 700 clients, including global leaders such as AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo!, BBC, Carat, Cyworld, Deutsche Bank, France Telecom, Best Buy, The Newspaper Association of America, Financial Times, ESPN, Fox Sports, Nestle, Starcom, Universal McCann, the United States Postal Service, Verizon, ViaMichelin, Merck and Expedia. For more information, please visit http://www.comscore.com/.
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