comScore Media Metrix Releases Top 50 Web Rankings For October
Retail Sites Experience Growth as Consumers Prepare for the Holiday Season
Popular Monopoly Promotion Makes McDonald's the Top-Gaining Property in October
Tribal Fusion and Google Ad Network Both Gain Three Positions in Ad Focus Ranking
RESTON, Va., Nov. 20 -- comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCOR)
, a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at top online properties for October 2007 from its comScore Media Metrix service. E-cards and flowers/gifts/greetings sites surged with the celebration of Halloween and Sweetest Day, while several retail categories experienced significant growth in anticipation of the holiday shopping season. Third quarter earnings announcements and volatile stock market conditions drove an increase in traffic to online trading sites.
"Holidays were the primary driver of Americans' Web activity during the month," said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. "With retailers moving their holiday season promotions earlier and earlier, October now represents the unofficial beginning of the holiday retail season. The surge in traffic to several online retail categories suggests that Americans are already beginning their hunt for holiday bargains."
Halloween and Sweetest Day Draw Consumers to Card and Gift Sites
With both Halloween and Sweetest Day celebrated in October, e-card and flowers/gifts/greetings sites experienced a seasonal surge in traffic. E-card sites gained 23 percent to reach 33.8 million visitors, making it the top-gaining category for the month. The category was led by the American Greetings Properties with 10.3 million visitors (up 56 percent), followed by Evite.com with 8.2 million visitors (up 31 percent) and Hallmark.com with 5 million visitors (up 20 percent). The flowers/gifts/greetings category saw a 22-percent gain to 35.6 million visitors with PartyCity.com experiencing the largest growth of the category's top sites with a 151 percent jump to 3.5 million visitors.
Retail Sites See Growth in Anticipation of the Holiday Season
Several retail-related categories, including malls, toys, retail food, consumer electronics and jewelry/luxury goods/accessories, posted significant gains in October as consumers geared up for the approaching holiday season. Mall sites rose 13 percent to 30.8 million visitors with the five most visited sites in the category all posting double-digit growth for the month.
Amid news of continued toy recalls, traffic to toy sites rose 12 percent to 23.6 million visitors. The category was led by Toysrus Sites with 8.7 million visitors (up 26 percent), with both KB Toys (up 105 percent to 1.8 million visitors) and Fisher Price (up 107 percent to 1.5 million visitors) posting triple-digit growth for the month.
High demand for hot electronic items helped boost traffic to the consumer electronics category 8 percent to 50.1 million visitors. Notable retailers in the top 10 consumer electronics sites included BestBuy.com (up 4 percent to 15 million visitors), Circuit City (up 22 percent to 10.8 million visitors), eBay Electronics U.S. (up 77 percent to 8 million visitors), Wal-Mart Electronics (up 9 percent to 3.8 million visitors), and Sony Electronics (up 22 percent to 2 million visitors).
Online Trading Sites Gain in October
Amid third quarter earnings announcements and heavy trading activity in the stock markets, online trading sites experienced a 21-percent increase to 12.4 million visitors. Fidelity Investments led the category with 3.8 million visitors (12 percent), followed by Scottrade Sites with 1.6 million visitors (up 7 percent), ShareBuilder.com with 1.3 million visitors (up 21 percent), and ETrade Financial Network with nearly 1.3 million visitors (also up 21 percent).
Top 50 Properties
October saw the top 10 properties remain unchanged from the previous month, with Yahoo! Sites holding the top position with 137 million visitors. AT&T Inc. gained 5 positions to number 15 with 33.7 million visitors, while Glam Media jumped 9 spots to number 23, attracting nearly 25.5 million visitors. YellowPages.com Network moved up 5 spots to number 25 with 24.9 million visitors. Connexus and WorldNow-LMN Sites both entered the ranking this month at positions 46 and 49, respectively.
Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking
Advertising.com remained atop the Ad Focus ranking in October, reaching 87 percent of the more than 182 million Americans online. Tribal Fusion catapulted three positions to grab the number two spot, reaching 76 percent of the Internet population, while Google Ad Network also rose three spots to capture the third position in the ranking. Blue Lithium and Casale Media Network both moved up one spot in the top 10 to capture positions seven and nine, respectively. ADSDAQ by ContextWeb (23) and IMDB.COM (49) both entered the ranking this month reaching 41 percent and 13 percent of the online audience, respectively.
comScore Top 10 Gaining Properties by Percentage Change in Unique
Visitors* (U.S.)
October 2007 vs. September 2007
Total U.S. Home, Work and University Internet Users
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Rank by
Unique
Sep-07 Oct-07 % Change Visitors
Total Internet : Total Audience 181,858 182,206 0 N/A
McDonald's 1,514 4,358 188 242
TheStreet.com Sites 3,984 8,961 125 115
R.H.Donnelley 3,306 7,068 114 148
Become.com 2,356 4,385 86 241
Revolution Health Network 4,471 7,964 78 129
Hearst Digital Media 6,003 10,489 75 90
Snopes.com 4,058 6,793 67 153
Pronto.com 3,180 5,220 64 204
Liberty Media Holding Corporation 8,298 13,564 63 70
AmericanGreetings Property 6,561 10,257 56 96
*Ranking based on the top 250 properties in October 2007
comScore Top 10 Gaining Categories by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors
(U.S.)
October 2007 vs. September 2007
Total U.S. Home, Work and University Internet Users
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Sep-07 Oct-07 % Change
Total Internet : Total Audience 181,858 182,206 0
e-cards 27,442 33,829 23
Flowers/Gifts/Greetings 29,238 35,631 22
Online Trading 10,258 12,434 21
Taxes 6,353 7,435 17
Mall 27,306 30,806 13
Toys 21,001 23,618 12
Retail - Food 13,682 14,791 8
Consumer Electronics 46,596 50,131 8
Genealogy 8,265 8,892 8
Jewelry/Luxury Goods/Accessories 15,308 16,462 8
comScore Top 50 Properties (U.S.)
October 2007
Total U.S. - Home, Work and University
Locations
Unique Visitors (000)
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Unique Unique
Visitors Visitors
Rank Property (000) Rank Property (000)
Total Internet :
Total Audience 182,206
1 Yahoo! Sites 136,775 26 Expedia Inc 24,575
27 Verizon
2 Google Sites 131,639 Communications
Corporation 24,389
3 Time Warner Network 121,130 28 Craigslist.org 23,992
4 Microsoft Sites 120,502 29 United Online, Inc 23,913
5 Fox Interactive 30 Shopzilla.com
Media 84,205 Sites 23,569
6 eBay 79,669 31 CareerBuilder LLC 23,000
7 Amazon Sites 56,746 32 ESPN 22,937
8 Wikipedia Sites 56,104 33 Gannett Sites 22,807
9 Ask Network 55,512 34 Bank of America 22,761
10 New York Times
Digital 49,816 35 Photobucket.com LLC 22,177
11 Viacom Digital 43,345 36 Disney Online 21,133
12 Apple Inc. 43,157 37 Lycos Sites 20,229
13 Weather Channel, The 38,796 38 Real.com Network 20,108
14 CNET Networks 35,336 39 WebMD Health 19,904
15 AT&T, Inc. 33,749 40 Superpages.com
Network 19,402
16 Facebook.com 32,910 41 E.W. Scripps 19,254
17 Gorilla Nation 42 ARTISTdirect
31,889 Network 19,105
43 iVillage.com: The
18 Target Corporation 31,090 Womens Network 18,495
19 Adobe Sites 30,592 44 NBC Universal 17,462
20 Wal-Mart 29,238 45 The Mozilla
Organization 17,249
21 CBS Corporation 28,262 46 Connexus 17,239
22 Monster Worldwide 26,013 47 NFL Internet Group 17,052
23 Glam Media 25,487 48 Weatherbug Property 17,051
24 Comcast Corporation 25,277 49 WorldNow - LMN Sites 16,539
25 Yellowpages.com 50 Cox Enterprises
Network 24,921 Inc. 16,414
comScore Ad Focus Ranking (U.S.)
October 2007
Total U.S. - Home, Work and University
Locations
Unique Visitors (000)
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Unique Unique
Visitors Reach Visitors Reach
Rank Property (000) % Rank Property (000) %
Total Internet :
Total Audience 182,206 100 %
1 Advertising.com**159,204 87 % 26 AdBrite** 70,766 39 %
2 Tribal Fusion** 137,582 76 % 27 AdDynamix.com** 68,979 38 %
3 Google Ad 28 Ebay.com 68,194 37 %
Network** 135,353 74 %
4 ValueClick 29 CPX
Networks** 135,027 74 % Interactive** 67,304 37 %
5 Yahoo! 134,979 74 % 30 Gorilla Nation
Media 66,960 37 %
6 Specific Media** 133,103 73 % 31 PrecisionClick** 61,790 34 %
7 Blue Lithium** 132,334 73 % 32 MSN.comHome Page 57,263 31 %
8 Google 123,733 68 % 33 Undertone
Networks** 56,365 31 %
9 Casale Media 34 Ask Network 55,512 30 %
Network** 115,087 63 % 35 Mapquest 49,870 27 %
10 AOL Media 36 YouTube.com 48,579 27 %
Network 110,714 61 % 37 Business.com
11 MSN-Windows Live 105,540 58 % Network 47,514 26 %
12 DRIVEpm** 104,497 57 % 38 Amazon.com 46,537 26 %
13 Traffic
Marketplace** 104,492 57 % 39 Kontera** 44,724 25 %
14 Interclick** 98,055 54 %
15 Yahoo.com Home 40 About.com 41,963 23 %
Page 95,170 52 %
16 24/7 Real Media** 92,743 51 % 41 Ebay.com Home
Page 41,192 23 %
17 Tremor Media 92,618 51 % 42 Facebook.com 32,910 18 %
18 AOL 90,516 50 % 43 Weather.com 29,231 16 %
19 Burst Media** 83,094 46 % 44 Real Cities
Network 27,490 15 %
20 Centro 80,134 44 % 45 Walmart.com 25,885 14 %
21 Collective 46 Yellowpages.com
Media** 79,171 43 % Network 24,921 14 %
22 adconion media 47 CNN 24,387 13 %
group** 75,674 42 % 48 CareerBuilder
23 ADSDAQ by Network 23,751 13 %
ContextWeb** 74,840 41 % 49 IMDB.com 23,388 13 %
24 Vibrant Media** 72,414 40 % 50 Nick Kids &
25 MySpace.com 71,982 40 % Family 23,257 13 %
Reach % denotes the percentage of the total Internet population that viewed a particular entity at least once in October. For instance, Yahoo! was seen by 74 percent of the more than 182 million Internet users in October.
* 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.
About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCOR)
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 800 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/.
