End of Summer Boosts Traffic to Online Video, Back-to-School and Football Sites
Dell Recall Drives Traffic; Xerox’s “Let’s Say Thanks” Campaign Delivers Users; Back-to-School Season Triggers Research and Online Shopping Spikes
RESTON, VA, September 15, 2006 – comScore Media Metrix today released its monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at top online properties and categories for August. Youtube.com continued its rise, increasing 19 percent to reach 19.1 million unique visitors, making it the 32nd most-visited Web property in the U.S., an eight-spot increase from July when it debuted in the comScore Media Metrix Top 50 for the first time.
“As user-generated content increases in popularity, sites like YouTube.com will continue to become a destination of choice for people wanting to share their video, ideas, photos, and the like with friends and family,” said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. “We’re seeing consumer products companies like Coca-Cola, which was one of the top-ten gaining properties in August, follow suit by inviting consumers to post their videos online. This type of marketing creates a forum for consumers to interact with the product and solidify a relationship with the brand.”
In another example of brand-relationship building, the popularity of Xerox’s “Let’s Say Thanks” campaign, which enables consumers to send free postcards to overseas military personnel, was largely responsible for making the Xerox Corporation the top-gaining Web property during August with 5.6 million visitors, a 628-percent increase versus July. Conversely, the much publicized recall of Dell laptops caused 18.1 million Americans to visit the Dell property, a 23-percent increase versus July.
Back-to-School Means Back Online
As consumers prepared for “Back-to-school” season, education and reference sites saw traffic increases, as did retailers such as Staples.com Sites (7 million visitors and a 32-percent increase versus July), Office Depot (6.7 million visitors and an 18-percent increase), and OfficeMax (3.2 million visitors and a 46-percent increase), which represented three of the top four sites in the Consumer Goods category in August.
Sites providing resources for school-aged children and their parents also saw increases as evidenced by the 48-percent surge in traffic at AOL Research & Learn (4.7 million visitors), the 36-percent increase to Greatschools.net (3.4 million visitors), and the 26-percent increase to Coca-Cola-sponsored Family Education Network (2.5 million).
Notable increases at sites dedicated to college students and graduates included Allschools.com Network, which increased 66 percent to 386,000 visitors; Collegegrad.com, which increased 61 percent to 412,000 visitors; and Finaid.org, which increased 55 percent to 400,000 visitors.
Finally, test prep companies College Board Property and Princeton Review.com saw sharp increases versus July, rising 22-percent (to 1.9 million visitors) and 28-percent (to 910,000 visitors), respectively. Additionally, Classmates.com, the site dedicated to connecting high school and college classmates, increased 23 percent to 17.2 million visitors in August.
Federal Reserve and Earnings Announcements Drive Traffic at Online Trading Sites
Traffic at online trading sites increased 10 percent to 12.4 million visitors, following second quarter earnings announcements and the Federal Reserve’s decision to not raise interest rates. Fidelity Investments led the category with 3.7 million visitors (up 8 percent), followed by Sharebuilder.com with 2.3 million visitors (up 112 percent) and Scottrade Sites with 1.7 million visitors (up 20 percent).
“Investors were likely accessing their accounts with greater frequency this August to assess the impact of quarterly earnings results, geopolitical uncertainty, and ongoing concern regarding the direction of interest rates following the Federal Reserve’s early August announcement that the target rate for overnight bank loans would not be increased after 17 straight increases since June 2004,” Flanagan said.
Americans Gear up for Football Season
Demonstrating America’s obsession with football, the second-biggest gaining property in August was the NFL Internet Group, which grew 71 percent to 13.4 million visitors. Within the sports category, the NFL Internet Group ranked fourth, bested by ESPN with 17.9 million visitors, Fox Sports on MSN with 14.1 million visitors and Yahoo! Sports with 13.8 million visitors.
Sports and Outdoors retailers also saw an overall uptick in traffic, driven by sites such as FootballFanatics.com, which rose 68 percent to 900,000 visitors, and the NFLshop.com, which jumped 139 percent increase to 820,000 visitors.
Top 50 Properties
In August, Yahoo! Sites maintained the number one ranking, attracting more than 131.3 million visitors. After re-entering the ranking in July, Dell jumped 12 spots to number 35, drawing 18.1 million unique visitors, a 23-percent increase from the previous month. Ticketmaster, Citysearch, WebMD Health, and Craigslist.org all re-entered the ranking, at numbers 42, 46, 48, and 49, respectively.
Top 50 Ad Focus
Advertising.com retained the top spot in the August Ad Focus ranking for the 28th consecutive month, reaching 85 percent of all U.S. Internet users. Within the top ten Ad Focus ranking ValueClick, Tribal Fusion, and Google each gained one spot, moving to numbers two, four, and seven, respectively. Burst Media gained three spots to secure the number 10 position, reaching 53 percent of Americans online, up from 48 percent in July. Advertising networks ContextWeb and Undertone Networks debuted within the top 50 in August, claiming the 25th and 28th spots, respectively. Finally, online video site Youtube.com and networking site Classmates.com also entered the Ad Focus ranking this month.
TABLE 1
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Top Ten Gaining Properties by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors* August 2006 vs. July 2006 Total U.S. Home, Work and University Internet Users Source: comScore Media Metrix |
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| Property | Jul-06 (000) | Aug-06 (000) | Percentage Change | Rank by Unique Visitors |
| Total Internet Population | 173,191 | 173,407 | 0% | N/A |
| Xerox Corp | 775 | 5,643 | 628% | 170 |
| NFL Internet Group | 7,832 | 13,355 | 71% | 66 |
| eWoss | 2,416 | 3,817 | 58% | 236 |
| Forbes Property | 5,644 | 7,840 | 39% | 122 |
| MOVIES.COM | 3,369 | 4,543 | 35% | 205 |
| MonsterCommerce | 3,624 | 4,874 | 34% | 193 |
| Staples.com Sites | 5,332 | 7,034 | 32% | 135 |
| The Away Network | 2,959 | 3,860 | 30% | 231 |
| The Mozilla Organization | 7,436 | 9,674 | 30% | 94 |
| Coca-Cola Company | 3,219 | 4,171 | 30% | 21 |
*Ranking based on the top 250 properties in August 2006.
TABLE 2
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Top Ten Gaining Categories by Unique Visitors August 2006 vs. July 2006 Total U.S. Home, Work and University Internet Users Source: comScore Media Metrix |
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| Jul-06 (000) | Aug-06 (000) | Percentage Change | |
| Total Internet : Total Audience | 173,191 | 173,407 | 0% |
| Training and Education | 8,240 | 9,886 | 20% |
| Religion | 19,440 | 22,659 | 17% |
| Education - Information | 52,512 | 60,229 | 15% |
| Retail - Food | 12,308 | 13,876 | 13% |
| Consumer Goods | 23,336 | 26,215 | 12% |
| Comparison Shopping | 55,787 | 61,918 | 11% |
| Online Trading | 11,280 | 12,388 | 10% |
| Reference | 69,623 | 75,904 | 9% |
| Jewelry/Luxury Goods/Accessories | 13,794 | 14,939 | 8% |
| Ground/Cruise | 10,386 | 11,221 | 8% |
TABLE 3
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Top 50 Properties August 2006 Total U.S. – Home, Work and University Locations Unique Visitors (000) Source: comScore Media Metrix |
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| Rank | Property | Unique Visitors (000) | Rank | Property | Unique Visitors (000) | |
| Total Internet Users | 173,407 | |||||
| 1 | Yahoo! Sites | 131,250 | 26 | CBS Corporation | 24,512 | |
| 2 | Time Warner Network | 121,595 | 27 | Bank of America | 23,449 | |
| 3 | Microsoft Sites | 119,089 | 28 | Real.com Network | 20,904 | |
| 4 | Google Sites | 107,989 | 29 | CareerBuilder LLC | 20,657 | |
| 5 | eBay | 80,164 | 30 | Gannett Sites | 20,586 | |
| 6 | Fox Interactive Media | 72,107 | 31 | Shopzilla.com Sites | 19,708 | |
| 7 | Ask Network | 53,816 | 32 | YOUTUBE.COM | 19,089 | |
| 8 | Amazon Sites | 48,570 | 33 | Vendare Media | 18,863 | |
| 9 | New York Times Digital | 38,276 | 34 | Comcast Corporation | 18,417 | |
| 10 | Verizon Communications Corp | 37,997 | 35 | Dell | 18,146 | |
| 11 | Weather Channel, The | 34,619 | 36 | ESPN | 17,850 | |
| 12 | Viacom Digital | 31,988 | 37 | Cox Enterprises Inc. | 17,606 | |
| 13 | CNET Networks | 31,771 | 38 | ARTISTdirect Network | 16,645 | |
| 14 | Apple Computer, Inc. | 31,582 | 39 | WhitePages | 16,358 | |
| 15 | Wikipedia Sites | 31,038 | 40 | Weatherbug Property | 16,064 | |
| 16 | United Online, Inc | 29,513 | 41 | E.W. Scripps | 15,894 | |
| 17 | Adobe Sites | 29,063 | 42 | Ticketmaster | 15,186 | |
| 18 | Expedia Inc | 27,765 | 43 | Trip Network Inc. | 15,032 | |
| 19 | AT&T, Inc. | 26,319 | 44 | iVillage.com: The Womens Network | 14,931 | |
| 20 | Monster Worldwide | 26,110 | 45 | EA Online | 14,811 | |
| 21 | Wal-Mart | 26,049 | 46 | Citysearch | 14,785 | |
| 22 | Gorilla Nation Media | 25,976 | 47 | FACEBOOK.COM | 14,782 | |
| 23 | Lycos, Inc. | 25,803 | 48 | WebMD Health | 14,778 | |
| 24 | Target Corporation | 25,408 | 49 | CRAIGSLIST.ORG | 14,612 | |
| 25 | Disney Online | 24,851 | 50 | Capital One | 14,590 | |
TABLE 4
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Ad Focus Ranking August 2006 Total U.S. – Home, Work and University Locations Unique Visitors (000) Source: comScore Media Metrix |
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| Rank | Property | Unique Visitors (000) | Reach % | Rank | Property | Unique Visitors (000) | Reach % | |
| Total Internet Users | 173,407 | 100% | ||||||
| 1 | Advertising.com** | 148,005 | 85% | 26 | EBAY.COM Home Page | 39,795 | 23% | |
| 2 | ValueClick** | 131,004 | 76% | 27 | Vibrant Media** | 37,912 | 22% | |
| 3 | Yahoo! | 129,845 | 75% | 28 | Undertone Networks** | 33,147 | 19% | |
| 4 | Tribal Fusion** | 113,571 | 65% | 29 | ABOUT.COM | 33,003 | 19% | |
| 5 | AOL Media Network | 113,055 | 65% | 30 | Business.com Network | 29,987 | 17% | |
| 6 | Casale Media Network** | 107,570 | 62% | 31 | Lycos Network | 25,608 | 15% | |
| 7 | 103,671 | 60% | 32 | Disney Online | 24,851 | 14% | ||
| 8 | MSN-Windows Live | 101,225 | 58% | 33 | WEATHER.COM | 23,928 | 14% | |
| 9 | Vendare Media - TrafficMarketplace** | 95,260 | 55% | 34 | CNN | 21,849 | 13% | |
| 10 | Burst Media** | 92,062 | 53% | 35 | CareerBuilder Network | 21,560 | 12% | |
| 11 | AOL | 88,939 | 51% | 36 | YOUTUBE.COM | 19,089 | 11% | |
| 12 | 24/7 Real Media** | 87,894 | 51% | 37 | GameDaily Custom Network | 19,062 | 11% | |
| 13 | YAHOO.COM Home Page | 86,359 | 50% | 38 | Vendare Media | 18,863 | 11% | |
| 14 | Blue Lithium** | 73,414 | 42% | 39 | EXPEDIA.COM* | 18,792 | 11% | |
| 15 | EBAY.COM | 71,840 | 41% | 40 | SuperPages | 18,443 | 11% | |
| 16 | Tremor Network | 70,207 | 40% | 41 | IMDB.COM | 18,287 | 11% | |
| 17 | PrecisionClick** | 68,997 | 40% | 42 | ESPN | 17,850 | 10% | |
| 18 | DRIVEpm** | 66,471 | 38% | 43 | The WebMD Health Network | 17,588 | 10% | |
| 19 | AdBrite** | 61,643 | 36% | 44 | CLASSMATES.COM | 17,207 | 10% | |
| 20 | Gorilla Nation Media Network | 60,368 | 35% | 45 | ARTISTdirect Network | 16,645 | 10% | |
| 21 | MYSPACE.COM | 55,778 | 32% | 46 | Travelocity All | 16,620 | 10% | |
| 22 | MSN.COM Home Page | 54,520 | 31% | 47 | WhitePages Network | 16,279 | 9% | |
| 23 | Ask Network | 53,816 | 31% | 48 | CNET | 16,126 | 9% | |
| 24 | AdDynamix.com** | 42,084 | 24% | 49 | WeatherBug | 15,887 | 9% | |
| 25 | ContextWeb** | 40,056 | 23% | 50 | WHITEPAGES.COM | 15,139 | 9 | |
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 75 percent of the more than 173 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, a division of comScore Networks, provides industry-leading Internet audience measurement services that report – with unmatched accuracy – 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 continues the tradition of quality and innovation established by its Media Metrix syndicated Internet ratings – long recognized as the currency in online media measurement among financial analysts, advertising agencies, publishers and marketers – while drawing upon comScore's advanced technologies to address important new industry requirements. All comScore Media Metrix syndicated ratings are based on industry-sanctioned sampling methodologies.
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