comScore Media Metrix Releases Top 50 Web Rankings for February
RESTON, Va., March 19, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX News Network/ -- 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 February 2008 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. February, a month that generally exhibits lower visitation totals as a result of having fewer days, saw increased visitation to tax, greetings, politics and news sites.
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"February is one of the busiest times of the year for greetings and gift sites with the celebration of Valentine's Day," said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. "These sites are particularly convenient for the procrastinators among us who wait until the last minute to buy their loved ones a gift."
Tax Category Continues as Fastest-Gaining for the Second Consecutive Month
The tax category ranked as the fastest-gaining site category with a 34-percent increase to more than 31 million visitors as Americans continued preparing their taxes in advance of the April 15 deadline. The category was led by IRS.gov with nearly 18 million visitors (up 43 percent), followed by TaxACT with 9.6 million visitors (up 66 percent) and H&R Block with 6.7 million visitors (up 26 percent).
Valentine's Day Spurs Growth to Greeting Sites
The Valentine's Day holiday caused both the flowers/gifts/greetings and e-card site categories to grow 17 and 14 percent, respectively. The flowers/gifts/greetings category saw substantial gains by flower sites with, ProFlowers.com (up 244 percent to 3.8 million visitors), FTD.com (up 273 percent to 3.8 million visitors), and 1-800-flowers.com (up 125 percent to 2.7 million visitors) each showing strong growth. The e-cards category was led by AmericanGreetings Property with nearly 20 million visitors, followed by Evite.com with 5.8 million visitors and Hallmark.com with 5.1 million visitors.
Presidential Primaries Drive Traffic to Candidates' Sites
With much-hyped Super Tuesday (February 5) and other primaries across the country occurring in February, the politics site category continued to see growth for the second consecutive month, increasing 9 percent to 15 million visitors. BarackObama.com led the category with 3.2 million visitors, up 46 percent from January, followed by HillaryClinton.com with 1.5 million visitors (up 31 percent). Republican-party nominee John McCain's site increased 49 percent to 888,000 visitors.
News Sites Experience Increases in February
News categories, both business/finance and general news, saw increases in February with economic worries and presidential primaries dominating the national agenda. Business/finance news sites gained 6 percent to reach nearly 62 million visitors, with Yahoo! Finance, AOL Money & Finance, and MSN Money leading the category. The general news category gained 2 percent to nearly 107 million visitors led by Yahoo! News, CNN, and MSNBC.
Top 50 Properties
Yahoo! Sites continued to lead as the top property with 137 million visitors, followed by Google Sites with nearly 136 million visitors and Microsoft Sites with more than 118 million visitors. Wikipedia Sites and Ask Network each moved up one position in the top 10 to spots seven and nine, respectively. Glam Media jumped 10 spots to reach position 18 with more than 29 million visitors during the month. Tax season propelled IRS.gov into the Top 50 ranking, capturing position 45.
Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking
Platform A, the ad network combining Advertising.com, Tacoda, AOL, and Quigo, led the Ad Focus ranking in February, reaching 90 percent of Americans online. Ad networks DRIVEpm and Traffic Marketplace each gained two positions, capturing positions 11 and 14, respectively, while Collective Media jumped four spots to position 19. IB Local Network entered the ranking this month at position 39, reaching 26 percent of the more than 185 million Americans online in the month.
TABLE 1
comScore Top 10 Gaining Properties by Percentage Change in Unique
Visitors* (U.S.)
February 2008 vs. January 2008
Total U.S. - Home, Work and University Locations
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Rank by
Unique
Jan-08 Feb-08 % Change Visitors
Total Internet :
Total Audience 184,239 185,017 0 N/A
Nascar.com 2,196 5,170 135 200
TaxACT 5,803 9,622 66 101
The Mozilla Organization 9,127 14,992 64 63
123GREETINGS.COM 2,977 4,763 60 222
Trilegiant Corporation 2,904 4,543 56 234
Oprah.com 3,455 5,307 54 196
IRS.gov 12,495 17,863 43 45
Heavy Networks 3,755 5,227 39 198
WildTangent Network 6,553 8,818 35 110
DishNetwork.com 3,809 4,955 30 207
*Ranking based on the top 250 properties in February 2008
TABLE 2
comScore Top 10 Gaining Categories by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors
(U.S.)
February 2008 vs. January 2008
Total U.S. - Home, Work and University Locations
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Jan-08 Feb-08 % Change
Total Internet : Total Audience 184,239 185,017 0
Taxes 23,336 31,380 34
Flowers/Gifts/Greetings 36,178 42,489 17
e-cards 34,260 39,120 14
Car Rental 5,130 5,841 14
Politics 13,807 15,050 9
Auto - Manufacturer 24,580 26,062 6
Business Finance - News/Research 58,540 61,871 6
Hotels/Resorts 30,958 31,805 3
Jewelry/Luxury Goods/Accessories 16,713 17,166 3
General News 104,929 106,899 2
TABLE 3
comScore Top 50 Properties (U.S.)
February 2008
Total U.S. - Home, Work and University Locations
Unique Visitors (000)
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Unique Unique
Rank Property Visitors Rank Property Visitors
(000) (000)
Total Internet :
Total Audience 185,017
1 Yahoo! Sites 136,767 26 AT&T, Inc. 26,385
2 Google Sites 135,970 27 Shopzilla.com Sites 24,782
3 Microsoft Sites 118,355 28 Comcast Corporation 24,466
4 AOL LLC 108,911 29 Yellowpages.com Network 23,691
5 Fox Interactive Media 83,638 30 CBS Corporation 23,564
6 eBay 77,864 31 Gannett Sites 23,407
7 Wikipedia Sites 55,906 32 Expedia Inc 23,150
8 Amazon Sites 55,172 33 Bank of America 23,111
9 Ask Network 54,120 34 Monster Worldwide 22,389
10 Time Warner -
Excluding AOL 52,661 35 CareerBuilder LLC 22,357
11 New York Times
Digital 47,632 36 United Online, Inc 21,966
12 Apple Inc. 47,048 37 Photobucket.com LLC 20,917
13 Viacom Digital 41,216 38 Atrinsic, Inc. 20,473
14 Weather Channel, The 41,057 39 E.W. Scripps 20,005
15 CNET Networks 33,320 40 AmericanGreetings
Property 19,884
16 Facebook.com 32,436 41 WebMD Health 19,637
17 Adobe Sites 30,620 42 WorldNow -
ABC Owned Sites 19,426
18 Glam Media 29,136 43 Real.com Network 18,498
19 Wal-Mart 27,651 44 NBC Universal 17,863
20 Superpages.com
Network 27,526 45 IRS.gov 17,863
21 Verizon Communications
Corporation 27,101 46 ESPN 17,836
22 Disney Online 27,094 47 Lycos Sites 17,702
23 Craigslist, Inc. 26,822 48 Cox Enterprises Inc. 17,603
24 Gorilla Nation 26,710 49 Demand Media 17,532
25 Target Corporation 26,631 50 Weatherbug Property 17,256
TABLE 4
comScore Ad Focus Ranking (U.S.)
February 2008
Total U.S. - Home, Work and University Locations
Unique Visitors (000)
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Unique Unique
Rank Property Visitors Reach Rank Property Visitors Reach
(000) % (000) %
Total Internet :
Total Audience 185,017 100.0
1 Platform-A** 166,459 90% 26 Vibrant Media** 75,034 41%
2 Advertising.com** 163,260 88% 27 CPX Interactive** 71,379 39%
3 Yahoo! Network** 156,582 85% 28 MYSPACE.COM* 67,957 37%
4 Google Ad Network** 146,953 79% 29 EBAY.COM 66,768 36%
5 Specific Media** 140,395 76% 30 Undertone
Networks** 65,205 35%
6 ValueClick
Networks** 137,582 74% 31 YouTube.com 63,921 35%
7 Yahoo! 135,007 73% 32 Gorilla Nation
Media 62,877 34%
8 Tribal Fusion** 132,827 72% 33 MSN.COM Home Page 57,558 31%
9 Google 128,397 69% 34 Ask Network 54,120 29%
10 Casale Media
Network** 124,593 67% 35 Quigo** 53,462 29%
11 DRIVEpm** 112,458 61% 36 Ybrant/AdDynamix
Network** 53,431 29%
12 AOL Media Network 108,911 59% 37 PrecisionClick** 53,114 29%
13 adconion media
group** 107,234 58% 38 Kontera** 50,998 28%
14 Traffic
Marketplace** 105,079 57% 39 IB Local Network 47,927 26%
15 MSN-Windows Live 102,839 56% 40 Vizi Inc** 46,988 25%
16 Tremor Media 97,681 53% 41 Turn, Inc** 46,302 25%
17 Yahoo.com Home Page 94,250 51% 42 MapQuest 45,027 24%
18 ADSDAQ by
ContextWeb** 93,786 51% 43 AMAZON.COM 44,926 24%
19 Collective Media** 93,296 50% 44 Business.com
Network 43,838 24%
20 24/7 Real Media** 90,941 49% 45 About 40,572 22%
21 AOL 90,316 49% 46 EBAY.COM Home Page 38,598 21%
22 Burst Media** 90,255 49% 47 The Nabbr Network 37,289 20%
23 interCLICK** 89,242 48% 48 IACAS Network 37,211 20%
24 AdBrite** 82,029 44% 49 Facebook.com 32,436 18%
25 Centro 80,159 43% 50 Weather.com 31,792 17%
Reach % denotes the percentage of the total Internet population that viewed a particular entity at least once in February. For instance, Yahoo! was seen by 73 percent of the more than 185 million Internet users in February.
* 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. For more information, please visit http://www.comscore.com/boilerplate
SOURCE comScore, Inc.
http://www.comscore.com
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