Taxes and Valentine’s Day Dominate the Rankings
Politics and News Sites See Gains Due to Interest in Presidential Primaries and Shaky Economy
RESTON, VA, March 19, 2008 – 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 MMX 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.
“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 MMX. “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 2008Total U.S. - Home, Work and University LocationsSource: Comscore MMX
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Jan-08
Feb-08
% Change
Rank by Unique 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 2008Total U.S. - Home, Work and University LocationsSource: Comscore MMX
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
Politics
13,807
15,050
9
Auto - Manufacturer
24,580
26,062
6
Business Finance - News/Research
58,540
61,871
Hotels/Resorts
30,958
31,805
3
Jewelry/Luxury Goods/Accessories
16,713
17,166
General News
104,929
106,899
2
TABLE 3
Comscore Top 50 Properties (U.S.)February 2008Total U.S. - Home, Work and University LocationsUnique Visitors (000)Source: Comscore MMX
Rank
Property
Unique Visitors
(000)
1
Yahoo! Sites
136,767
26
AT&T, Inc.
26,385
Google Sites
135,970
27
Shopzilla.com Sites
24,782
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
CBS Corporation
23,564
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
Ask Network
54,120
Monster Worldwide
22,389
10
Time Warner - Excluding AOL
52,661
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
Weather Channel, The
41,057
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
Adobe Sites
30,620
42
WorldNow - ABC Owned Sites
19,426
18
Glam Media
29,136
Real.com Network
18,498
19
Wal-Mart
27,651
44
NBC Universal
20
Superpages.com Network
27,526
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 2008Total U.S. - Home, Work and University LocationsUnique Visitors (000)Source: Comscore MMX
Unique Visitors (000)
Reach %
100.0
Platform-A**
166,459
90%
Vibrant Media**
75,034
41%
Advertising.com**
163,260
88%
CPX Interactive**
71,379
39%
Yahoo! Network**
156,582
85%
MYSPACE.COM*
67,957
37%
Google Ad Network**
146,953
79%
EBAY.COM
66,768
36%
Specific Media**
140,395
76%
Undertone Networks**
65,205
35%
ValueClick Networks**
137,582
74%
YouTube.com
63,921
Yahoo!
135,007
73%
Gorilla Nation Media
62,877
34%
Tribal Fusion**
132,827
72%
MSN.COM Home Page
57,558
31%
Google
128,397
69%
29%
Casale Media Network**
124,593
67%
Quigo**
53,462
DRIVEpm**
112,458
61%
Ybrant/AdDynamix Network**
53,431
AOL Media Network
59%
PrecisionClick**
53,114
adconion media group**
107,234
58%
Kontera**
50,998
28%
Traffic Marketplace**
105,079
57%
IB Local Network
47,927
26%
MSN-Windows Live
102,839
56%
Vizi Inc**
46,988
25%
Tremor Media
97,681
53%
Turn, Inc**
46,302
Yahoo.com Home Page
94,250
51%
MapQuest
45,027
24%
ADSDAQ by ContextWeb**
93,786
AMAZON.COM
44,926
Collective Media**
93,296
50%
Business.com Network
43,838
24/7 Real Media**
90,941
49%
About
40,572
22%
AOL
90,316
EBAY.COM Home Page
38,598
21%
Burst Media**
90,255
The Nabbr Network
37,289
20%
interCLICK**
89,242
48%
IACAS Network
37,211
AdBrite**
82,029
44%
18%
Centro
80,159
43%
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 MMXComscore MMX 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 MMX reports are used by financial analysts, advertising agencies, publishers and marketers. Comscore MMX syndicated ratings are based on industry-sanctioned sampling methodologies.
About ComscoreComscore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/boilerplate
Contact:Sarah RadwanickDirector, Regional Product MarketingComscore, Inc. +44 (0) 20 7099 1784worldpress@comscore.com