comScore Media Metrix Releases February Top 50 Web Rankings and Analysis
RESTON, Va., March 9 /PRNewswire/ -- comScore Media Metrix today released
its monthly analysis of consumer activity at top online properties and
categories. While much of February's Web activity was seasonal, such as
filing 2005 tax returns or shopping for Valentine's Day gifts, interest in the
2006 Winter Olympics also drove significant activity.
"Although Valentine's Day drove up traffic in several categories versus
the previous month, those categories actually experienced declines when
compared to February of the prior year," said Peter Daboll, president and CEO
of comScore Media Metrix. "Conversely, heavy interest in the 2006 Winter
Olympics propelled the Sports category to a 16 percent traffic gain and
32 percent increase in engagement over February 2005. It appears that the
Olympics took away mindshare from Valentine's Day during the middle part of
the month, possibly resulting in softer sales for Valentine's Day retailers."
Consumers Love the Web as a Valentine's Day Resource - But Picture Not as
Rosy as Last Year
As might be expected in February, Internet traffic increased in the
Flowers/Greetings/Gifts, e-Cards and Jewelry/Luxury Goods/Accessories
categories compared to the previous month. Flowers/Gifts/Greetings saw the
second largest traffic increase among all categories for the month, as it
jumped 25 percent to 36.8 million visitors. E-Cards ranked as the fourth
highest gaining category increasing 10 percent to 38.3 million visitors, while
Jewelry/Luxury Goods/Accessories ranked fifth increasing 8 percent to
14.6 million visitors.
Among the Flowers/Gifts/Greetings category, each of the major retailers
saw notable traffic gains. American Greetings (up 33 percent to 11.6 million
visitors) and Hallmark (up 34 percent to 8.9 million visitors) led the way for
sites specializing in greetings, while FTD.com (up 156 percent to 4.9 million
visitors) and 1-800-FLOWERS.com (up 77 percent to 3.1 million visitors)
attracted the most visitors among online florists. RedEnvelope.com's
43 percent growth to 1.7 million visitors and Tiffany & Co.'s 52 percent
growth to 1.3 million visitors helped propel the Jewelry/Luxury
Goods/Accessories category during February.
Compared to February of last year, however, the numbers are not quite as
favorable. The Flowers/Gifts/Greetings category experienced the most
significant declines from last year losing 10 percent of its traffic, while e-
Cards (down 7 percent) and Jewelry/Luxury Goods/Accessories (down 4 percent)
also saw drop-offs.
Olympics Coverage Draws Heavy Traffic
The 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy drew millions of people to the
Web in February, propelling the Sports category onto the list of top 10
gaining categories. U.S. Olympic team sites drew the most Olympic-related
traffic with 2.6 million visitors, which marked a 34 percent increase from the
prior month. The biggest percentage gainer among Olympic sites was
Torino2006.org, which saw a 445 percent jump in visitation from January,
reaching 1.5 million visitors. Several other sports sites were buoyed by
Olympics coverage, including ESPN (up 7 percent to 17.8 million visitors),
Yahoo! Sports (up 18 percent to 13 million visitors), and AOL Sports (up
44 percent to 11.7 million visitors). Interest from NASCAR fans geared up
online in February with the Daytona 500, propelling the site onto the list of
top 10 gaining properties with 4.7 million visitors (up 90 percent).
Early Tax Filing Equals Early Refunds
Visitation to Tax sites rose for the second consecutive month, as
increasing numbers of people are looking to file their tax returns. Following
a dramatic 215 percent traffic increase from December to January, visitation
to the Taxes category grew another 28 percent in February to 29.7 million
visitors.
With its wealth of tax information resources and links to online filing
sites, IRS.gov saw traffic increase 38 percent to 15.9 million visitors to
rank as the top site in the category. Other tax sites primarily dedicated to
online filing also saw significant gains. TurboTax.com drew 7.8 million
visitors in February (up 42 percent), while TaxACTOnline.com attracted 3.7
million visitors (up 39 percent) and TaxACT.com drew 3.5 million visitors (up
57 percent). Compared to February 2005, TurboTax gained 13 percent,
TaxACT.com grew 7 percent, and TaxACTOnline.com drew 42 percent more traffic.
These strong gains indicate that more Americans are, in fact, filing their
taxes online, rather than just retrieving tax-related information.
Political Sites Shoot Up in February Rankings
An abundance of political stories surfaced in February, driving interested
parties to the political sites for extended coverage and opinions. Most
notably, Vice President Dick Cheney's now infamous hunting mishap piqued
interest among the mainstream, increasing traffic to the Politics category by
18 percent to 6.4 million visitors, making the Politics the third fastest-
growing category for the month. February's traffic gains marked the biggest
increase in the category since Hurricane Katrina coverage drove people to the
Web in September 2005. Among the top gaining sites in the Politics category
for the month were AnnCoulter.org, which increased 273 percent to 512,000
visitors, and RealClearPolitics.com, which increased 167 percent to 382,000
visitors.
Top 50 Properties
In February, the Top 50 Properties saw Ask Jeeves and Verizon
Communications Corporation each move up one spot, attracting just over 43
million and 32 million unique visitors, respectively. Both The Weather
Channel and Wikipedia sites continued to climb the rankings, with each drawing
7 percent more unique visitors than in January. Finally, as more people
prepared their taxes, IRS.GOV entered the ranking at number 36 with just under
16 million unique visitors.
Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking
February saw few large shifts in the Ad Focus Ranking. Advertising.com
remained number one for the 22nd consecutive month, reaching 80 percent of all
Americans online. Google and Casale Media Network both inched up one spot,
with each network now reaching 55 percent of the online U.S. population.
Beyond the top ten, Sports entities ESPN and Fox Sports on MSN jumped to
numbers 31 and 36, respectively, while Mamma Media Solutions increased 5 spots
to number 33, reaching nearly 17 million Americans online.
TABLE 1
Top Ten Gaining Properties by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors*
February 2006 vs. January 2006
Total U.S. Home, Work and University Internet Users
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Rank by
Jan-06 Feb-06 Percentage Unique
Property (000) (000) Change Visitors
Total Internet
Population 170,797 166,966 -2 N/A
FTD.com 1,935 4,956 156 156
Powerball.com 1,314 3,271 149 228
Nascar.com 2,470 4,685 90 167
1-800-FLOWERS 1,753 3,095 77 245
TaxAct.com 2,245 3,528 57 217
YouTube.com 2,741 4,230 54 186
123Greetings.com 3,061 4,441 45 176
TaxActOnline.com 2,654 3,692 39 210
IRS.gov 11,511 15,919 38 36
The Mozilla
Organization 3,465 4,788 38 162
*Ranking based on the top 250 properties in February 2006.
TABLE 2
Top Ten Gaining Categories by Unique Visitors
February 2006 vs. January 2006
Total U.S. Home, Work and University Internet Users
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Jan-06 Feb-06 Percentage
(000) (000) Change
Total Internet Population 170,797 166,966 -2
Taxes 23,244 29,725 28
Flowers/Gifts/Greetings 29,393 36,789 25
Politics 5,469 6,428 18
e-cards 34,722 38,307 10
Jewelry/Luxury Goods/
Accessories 13,508 14,607 8
Toys 16,349 17,105 5
Sports 59,549 61,707 4
Real Estate 34,785 36,019 4
Weather 51,581 52,658 2
Retail - Food 11,254 11,427 2
TABLE 3
Top 50 Properties
February 2006
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 Users 166,966
1 Yahoo! Sites 120,004 26 Target Corporation 19,876
2 MSN-Microsoft Sites 110,783 27 CareerBuilder LLC 19,705
3 Time Warner Network 110,423 28 Wikipedia Sites 19,638
4 Google Sites 94,627 29 CBS Corporation 18,776
5 eBay 66,613 30 Gannett Sites 18,727
6 Ask Jeeves 43,030 31 Shopzilla.com Sites 18,652
7 Amazon Sites 42,660 32 ESPN 17,806
8 MYSPACE.COM 37,349 33 Real.com Network 17,208
9 New York Times Digital 34,841 34 Comcast Corporation 16,835
10 Verizon Communications
Corporation 32,058 35 E.W. Scripp 16,646
11 Walt Disney Internet
Group (WDIG) 31,662 36 IRS.GOV 15,919
12 Weather Channel, The 27,887 37 Trip Network Inc. 15,897
13 CNET Networks 26,492 38 Weatherbug Property 15,268
14 Expedia Inc 25,392 39 Citysearch 15,073
15 Viacom Online 25,250 40 Cox Enterprises Inc. 14,463
16 United Online, Inc 24,816 41 News Corp. Online 13,886
17 Apple Computer, Inc. 24,277 42 Earthlink 13,734
18 Monster Worldwide 24,050 43 iVillage.com: The Womens
Network 13,439
19 Lycos, Inc. 23,443 44 WebMD Health 13,093
20 AT&T, Inc. 22,355 45 Infospace Network 13,062
21 Vendare Media 22,017 46 UPS Sites 12,940
22 Adobe Sites 21,895 47 WhitePages 12,910
23 Bank of America 21,047 48 Ticketmaster 12,676
24 Wal-Mart 20,999 49 Dell 12,471
25 Gorilla Nation Media 20,770 50 OVERSTOCK.COM 12,365
TABLE 4
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 70 percent of the more than 166 million Internet users
in February. The notation "**" indicates that the entity is an
advertising network.
Ad Focus Ranking
February 2006
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
Users 166,966 100%
1 Advertising.com** 133,190 80% 26 Business.com Network 23,962 14%
2 Yahoo! 117,278 70% 27 Lycos Network 23,386 14%
3 Valueclick Media/
Fastclick** 108,831 65% 28 Vendare Media 22,017 13%
4 AOL Media Network 103,536 62% 29 CareerBuilder Network 20,980 13%
5 Google 92,507 55% 30 CNN 20,546 12%
6 MSN 91,749 55% 31 ESPN 17,806 11%
7 Casale Media
Network** 88,998 53% 32 Disney Online 17,413 10%
8 Tribal Fusion** 86,425 52% 33 Mamma Media
Solutions** 16,819 10%
9 Vendare Media -
TrafficMarketplace** 84,199 50% 34 AdDynamix.com** 16,598 10%
10 AOL 81,413 49% 35 WebMD Health Network 16,077 10%
11 YAHOO.COM Home Page 73,918 44% 36 FOX Sports on MSN 15,852 9%
12 24/7 Real Media** 73,527 44% 37 SuperPages Network 15,629 9%
13 BURST! Media** 65,166 39% 38 IMDB.COM 15,092 9%
14 EBAY.COM 57,420 34% 39 WeatherBug 15,010 9%
15 Blue Lithium** 55,149 33% 40 CITYSEARCH.COM* 14,935 9%
16 Gorilla Nation Media
Network 53,180 32% 41 Travelocity All 14,285 9%
17 MSN.COM Home Page 51,774 31% 42 CLASSMATES.COM 13,754 8%
18 Ask Jeeves 43,030 26% 43 iVillage.com: The
Womens Network 13,439 8%
19 MYSPACE.COM 37,349 22% 44 BIZRATE.COM 12,931 8%
20 EBAY.COM Home Page 33,600 20% 45 WhitePages Network 12,855 8%
21 Vibrant Media** 33,210 20% 46 CNET 12,418 7%
22 ABOUT.COM 30,104 18% 47 MONSTER.COM* 12,300 7%
23 MSNBC 26,484 16% 48 ORBITZ.COM 12,169 7%
24 WEATHER.COM 25,752 15% 49 WHITEPAGES.COM 11,965 7%
25 Expedia Inc 25,392 15% 50 TICKETMASTER.COM 11,933 7%
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.
About comScore Networks
comScore Networks provides unparalleled insight into consumer behavior and
attitudes. This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of more
than 2 million consumers who have given comScore explicit 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 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,
Nestle, MBNA, Universal McCann, the United States Postal Service, Merck and
Orbitz. For more information, please visit http://www.comscore.com .
SOURCE comScore Networks
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CONTACT:
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