From ItsaSurvey.com
Taxes a Big Hit Online
By comScore, Inc.
Feb 21, 2008 - 4:16:30 PM
comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, released its monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at top online properties for January 2008 from the comScore Media Metrix service. The month saw increased visits to tax, politics, career, real estate and travel-related sites.
"The new year represents a time for Americans to reflect on the past year and plan for the coming year, whether it's searching for a new job, a new residence, or preparing for tax season," said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. "There was also a huge surge in activity at political content sites as the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries kicked off with the Iowa caucuses in early January."
Tax Preparation Causes Category to Surge
The official beginning of tax season sent Americans online in droves, driving the tax category up 202 percent to more than 23 million visitors, making it the top-gaining category in January. IRS.gov led the category with 12.5 million visitors (up 181 percent), followed by TaxACT with 5.8 million visitors (up more than 1,000 percent), and H&R Block with 5.3 million visitors (up 312 percent).
Heated Presidential Primaries Boost Traffic to Politics Sites
As the presidential primaries kicked off, the politics category jumped 65 percent to 13.8 million visitors as Americans went online for news coverage and opinions and to visit candidate Web sites. BarackObama.com led the category with 2.2 million visitors, up 429 percent from December, followed by HillaryClinton.com with 1.1 million visitors (up 202 percent). On the Republican side, MikeHuckabee.com attracted 937,000 visitors, up 96 percent, while JohnMcCain.com grew 261 percent to 596,000 visitors.
New Year = New Career, Americans Search the Web for Jobs
As many Americans reevaluated their current career situations with the New Year, the career services and development category experienced a 31-percent gain for the month. The category was led by CareerBuilder LLC with 24.8 million visitors, followed by Yahoo! HotJobs with 17.4 million visitors and Monster with 17.1 million visitors.
Real Estate Category Experiences Seasonal Growth
Concerns over a shaky real estate market, along with those resolving to move residences in 2008, precipitated a 28-percent gain to 42 million visitors to the real estate category in January. Move Network led the category with 10.1 million visitors (up 49 percent), followed by Yahoo! Real Estate with 4.6 million visitors (50 percent), and Rent.com with 3.5 million visitors (up 51 percent).
Winter Weather Prompts Vacation Planning
Travel-related sites experienced an increase in traffic as people looked to escape the winter doldrums and take advantage of post-holiday travel deals. Ground/cruise sites gained 27 percent to 11.3 million visitors, while car rental sites grew 26 percent to 5.1 million visitors, and hotels/resorts gained 23 percent to nearly 31 million visitors.
Top 50 Properties
Yahoo! Sites continued to lead as the top property with more than 138 million visitors, followed by Google Sites with nearly 135 million visitors and Microsoft Sites with 119 million visitors. Beginning with January comScore Media Metrix data, Time Warner Network has now been divided into AOL LLC, which includes all AOL related entities, and Time Warner - Excluding AOL. During the month, large increases were experienced by the following properties; Disney Online (up five spots to position 21) and Expedia Inc. (up nine spots to 32). CareerBuilder LLC entered the ranking this month grabbing position 27.
Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking
Platform A, the ad network combining Advertising.com, Tacoda, AOL, and Quigo, debuted this month in the top spot in the Ad Focus Ranking, reaching 91 percent of the more than 184 million Americans online. Substantial gains were achieved by Adconion Media Group (up four spots to 14), PrecisionClick (up six spots to 35), and Kontera (up four spots to 36). Three entities joined the ranking this month; Turn, Inc., IACAS Network, and CNN.
comScore Top 10 Gaining Properties by Percentage Change in Unique
Visitors* (U.S.)
January 2008 vs. December 2007
Total U.S. - Home, Work and University Locations
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Dec-07 Jan-08 % Change Rank by
Unique
Visitors
Total Internet:
Total Audience 183,619 184,239 0 N/A
TaxACT 421 5,803 1,277 182
H&R Block 1,294 5,337 312 201
IRS.GOV 4,442 12,495 181 82
Kayak.com Network 3,234 6,871 112 150
Intuit 7,096 14,979 111 64
Weight Watchers
International 2,287 4,552 99 240
PCH.COM 4,900 8,953 83 108
CareerBuilder
LLC 13,914 24,752 78 27
Job.com Sites 3,567 5,654 59 190
ED.GOV 4,314 6,828 58 152
*Ranking based on the top 250 properties in January 2008
comScore Top 10 Gaining Categories by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors
(U.S.)
January 2008 vs. December 2007
Total U.S. - Home, Work and University Locations
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Dec-07 Jan-08 % Change
Total Internet:
Total Audience 183,619 184,239 0
Taxes 7,729 23,336 202
Politics 8,384 13,807 65
Career Services
and Development 49,150 64,144 31
Real Estate 32,747 41,991 28
Ground/Cruise 8,909 11,303 27
Car Rental 4,065 5,130 26
Retail - Computer
Software 26,756 33,548 25
Financial
Information/Advice 32,109 39,792 24
Hotels/Resorts 25,131 30,958 23
Online Travel Agents 34,581 42,530 23
comScore Top 50 Properties (U.S.)
January 2008
Total U.S. - Home, Work and University Locations
Unique Visitors (000)
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Rank Property Unique Rank Property Unique
Visitors Visitors
(000) (000)
Total Internet: Total
Audience 184,239
1 Yahoo! Sites 138,059 26 Superpages.com Network 26,237
2 Google Sites 134,886 27 CareerBuilder LLC 24,752
3 Microsoft Sites 119,297 28 Glam Media 24,626
4 AOL LLC 109,442 29 Shopzilla.com Sites 24,210
5 Fox Interactive Media 83,752 30 Monster Worldwide 24,185
6 eBay 78,789 31 CBS Corporation 23,643
7 Amazon Sites 59,003 32 Expedia Inc 23,454
8 Wikipedia Sites 55,589 33 Gannett Sites 22,997
9 Time Warner
- Excluding AOL 52,645 34 Bank of America 22,990
10 Ask Network 52,102 35 Yellowpages.com Network 22,869
11 New York Times
Digital 48,471 36 United Online, Inc 22,065
12 Apple Inc. 48,413 37 E.W. Scripps 20,952
13 Viacom Digital 42,011 38 Photobucket.com LLC 20,497
14 Weather Channel, The 40,478 39 Real.com Network 19,747
15 CNET Networks 34,859 40 Lycos Sites 19,484
16 Facebook.com 33,861 41 WebMD Health 19,219
17 Adobe Sites 31,169 42 ESPN 19,166
18 Wal-Mart 30,747 43 WorldNow - ABC
Owned Sites 19,115
19 AT&T, Inc. 27,890 44 NBC Universal 17,828
20 Target Corporation 27,874 45 Best Buy Sites 17,813
21 Disney Online 27,524 46 Weatherbug Property 17,456
22 Verizon Communications
Corporation 27,220 47 iVillage.com:
The Womens Network 17,383
23 Gorilla Nation 27,119 48 Cox Enterprises Inc. 17,286
24 Comcast Corporation 27,068 49 AmericanGreetings
Property 16,771
25 Craigslist.org 26,660 50 Hearst Corporation 16,708
comScore Ad Focus Ranking (U.S.)
January 2008
Total U.S. - Home, Work and University Locations
Unique Visitors (000)
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Rank Property Unique Reach% Rank Property Unique Reach%
Visitors Visitors
(000) (000)
Total Internet:
Total Audience 184,239 100.0
1 Platform-A** 166,763 91% 26 Vibrant
Media** 75,953 41%
2 Advertising.com**+ 163,837 89% 27 CPX
Interactive** 71,667 39%
3 Yahoo! Network** 155,822 85% 28 MySpace.com* 68,641 37%
4 Google Ad Network**143,200 78% 29 Ebay.com 66,861 36%
5 Specific Media** 142,290 77% 30 Gorilla Nation
Media 65,282 35%
6 ValueClick
Networks** 137,548 75% 31 YouTube.com 61,375 33%
7 Yahoo! 136,243 74% 32 Undertone
Networks** 59,273 32%
8 Tribal Fusion** 131,840 72% 33 MSN.com Home
Page 58,548 32%
9 Google 126,569 69% 34 Ask Network 52,102 28%
10 Casale Media
Network** 121,893 66% 35 PrecisionClick** 51,156 28%
11 AOL Media Network 109,442 59% 36 Kontera** 50,481 27%
12 MSN-Windows Live 103,424 56% 37 Amazon.com 48,324 26%
13 DRIVEpm** 102,085 55% 38 Business.com
Network 48,181 26%
14 adconion media
group** 98,378 53% 39 AdDynamix.com** 46,625 25%
15 Yahoo.com Home Page 95,460 52% 40 MapQuest 44,537 24%
16 Traffic
Marketplace** 95,254 52% 41 Turn, Inc** 42,103 23%
17 Tremor Media 93,929 51% 42 YuMe Video
Network 41,666 23%
18 AOL 91,005 49% 43 About 41,487 23%
19 24/7 Real Media** 90,483 49% 44 Ebay.com Home
Page 39,169 21%
20 ADSDAQ by
ContextWeb** 88,984 48% 45 Vizi Media** 38,066 21%
21 Burst Media** 88,097 48% 46 IACAS Network 37,526 20%
22 AdBrite** 85,308 46% 47 The Nabbr
Network 36,643 20%
23 Collective Media** 79,832 43% 48 Facebook.com 33,861 18%
24 interCLICK** 79,369 43% 49 Weather.com 31,464 17%
25 Centro 78,460 43% 50 CNN 29,157 16%
Reach % denotes the percentage of the total Internet population that
viewed a particular entity at least once in January. For instance, Yahoo!
was seen by 74 percent of the more than 184 million Internet users in
January.
* Entity has assigned some portion of traffic to other syndicated
entities.
** Denotes an advertising network.
+ Advertising.com is also included in the Platform A entity beginning
with January 2008 Media Metrix data.
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.
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