London, UK, March 23, 2007–comScore, a leader in measuring the digital age, today revealed the top French Internet properties and the top gaining properties during February, based on data collected through its comScore World Metrix audience ratings service.  The Company also introduced a new suite of metrics based on site “visits.”  A “visit” is a frequency measure and indicator of user engagement, defined as a individual’s set of  interactions with a specific Web site.  In counting visits, if an individual does not interact with the site for at least a 30-minute period, that visit will be defined as having been concluded and a new visit will be counted when the individual next accesses the site.  Included among the new suite of metrics are total visits, average minutes per visit, average visits per visitor, and average visits per usage day.  

“With the increased usage of technologies like AJAX, the value of page views as an engagement metric is declining,” said Bob Ivins, managing director of comScore Europe. “In an attempt to keep pace with technology and provide our clients with the most relevant Web usage statistics, we are introducing a new suite of metrics based on visits.”  

“Visits” an Effective Gauge of Frequency

While each of the “visits” metrics offers a different measure of frequency, the “average visits per visitor” is the most illustrative of return visits per individual during the course of a month.  Used in concert with the “unique visitors” metric, this measure can help give a more comprehensive view of a site’s performance.

In February, the top three sites in France by unique visitors (Google Sites, Microsoft Sites and France Telecom, respectively) happened to also be the top three sites based on average visits per visitor.  Despite the congruence of the top three rankings, there were also some surprising differences between the two metrics:

·         Groupe Amaury, the 69th most-visited property in February that includes lequipe.fr, was the sixth-most engaging property (as measured by average visits per visitor);

·         T-Online, the 42nd most-visited property that includes Club-Internet.fr, was the seventh most-engaging property;

·         Neuf Telecom, the 61st most-visited property, was the eighth most-engaging property.

TABLE 1 

Top 10 Properties by Unique Visitors (000)* French Unique Visitors, Age 15+ February 2007  Total France – Home and Work Locations**  Source: comScore World Metrix
Rank	Property	Unique Visitors (000)
	Total Internet Users	24,464
1	Google Sites	17,006
2	Microsoft Sites	15,843
3	France Telecom	13,438
4	Iliad/Free.fr Sites	11,980
5	eBay	10,728
6	Groupe Pages Jaunes	10,539
7	Yahoo! Sites	10,503
8	Wikipedia Sites	7,941
9	Groupe PPR	7,835
10	Skyrock Network	7,828

 

*Ranking based on the top 100 French properties in February 2007.

** Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

TABLE 2

Top 10 Properties by Average Visits per Visitor* French Unique Visitors, Age 15+ February 2007 Total France – Home and Work Locations** Source: comScore World Metrix
Rank	Property	Average Visits/Visitor
	Total Internet Visits	63.3
1	Google Sites	41.6
2	Microsoft Sites	33.9
3	France Telecom	23.2
4	Skyrock Network	19.9
5	Yahoo! Sites	13.8
6	Groupe Amaury	13.0
7	T-Online Sites	12.6
8	Neuf Telecom	11.7
9	eBay	10.4
10	Iliad/Free.fr Sites	10.3

 

*Ranking based on the top 100 French properties in February 2007.

** Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

 

Other notable findings in the February data (as illustrated in Tables 3 and 4) include:

·         Google Sites, Microsoft Sites and France Telecom retained their rankings as the top three properties among French Internet users, with 17, 15.8 and 13.4 million French visitors, respectively.

·         Helped by Valentine’s Day, French dating site MeetIC was the biggest gainer in February’s ranking, up 42 percent to 3.9 million French visitors; greeting card purveyor American Greetings Property was the third-biggest gainer, up 20 percent to 1.9 million visitors.

·         Two gaming sites appeared on the list of top 10 gainers, including French lottery site Francaise des Jeux, the fourth-biggest gainer with 1.8 million French visitors (a 19-percent increase), and KadoDuJour.com, the ninth-biggest gainer with 1.5 million French visitors (a 6-percent increase).

TABLE 3

Top 10 Online Properties by Unique Visitor(000) French Unique Visitors, Age 15+* January vs. February 2007 Total France–Home and Work Locations* Source: comScore World Metrix
	Jan.-07 (000)	Feb. -07 (000)	Percentage Change
Total FR Internet Audience, Age 15+	24,560	24,464	0%
Google Sites	17,090	17,006	0%
Microsoft Sites	15,966	15,843	-1%
France Telecom	13,746	13,438	-2%
Iliad/Free.fr Sites	12,764	11,980	-6%
eBay	11,038	10,728	-3%
Groupe Pages Jaunes	10,993	10,539	-4%
Yahoo! Sites	11,143	10,503	-6%
Wikipedia Sites	8,062	7,941	-1%
Groupe PPR	8,714	7,835	-10%
Skyrock Network	7,835	7,828	0%

 

* Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

 

TABLE 4

Top 10 Gaining Properties Ranked by Percentage Change* French Unique Visitors, Age 15+ * January vs. February, 2007 Total France–Home and Work Locations** Source: comScore World Metrix
	Jan.-07 (000)	Feb.-07 (000)	Percentage Change
Total FR Internet Audience, Age 15+	24,259	24,409	1%
MeetIC	2,728	3,883	42%
The Mozilla Organization	2,155	2,925	36%
American Greetings Property	1,547	1,861	20%
Francaise des Jeux	1,559	1,849	19%
RADIOBLOGCLUB.COM	1,478	1,664	13%
CITYVOX.FR	1,363	1,534	13%
SUR-LA-TOILE.COM	1,503	1,667	14%
Michelin Group	3,818	4,070	13%
KADODUJOUR.COM	1,458	1,541	6%
DAILYMOTION.COM	5,016	5,280	5%

*Ranking based on the top 100 French properties in February 2007.

** Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

 

About comScore World Metrix

comScore World Metrix is the first service to continuously measure and report online behaviour on a world-wide basis, providing visitation metrics and demographic characteristics for Web site audiences around the world.  With active representation of countries that comprise the vast majority of the global Internet population, World Metrix provides its clients with worldwide Internet population estimates and harmonized online performance metrics based on a consistent methodology across all countries.  More than 100 clients subscribe to comScore’s World Metrix service, including 8 of the top 10 interactive advertising agencies.

About comScore
comScore, Inc. is a global leader in measuring the digital age. 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 behaviour, 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 behaviour and attitudes.  comScore consultants 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 global leaders such as AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Verizon, Best Buy, The Newspaper Association of America, Tribune Interactive, ESPN, Fox Sports, Nestlé, MBNA, Universal McCann, the United States Postal Service, Merck and Expedia.  For more information, please visit www.comscore.com.   

Contact:
Andrew Lipsman
Senior Analyst
comScore, Inc.
312-775-6510
press@comscore.com