Daily Research News Online no. 3273 - June Web Traffic Stats

June Web Traffic Stats

July 19 2004

Internet audience measurement specialist comScore Media Metrix has released stats for site viewing by US users in June, showing a summertime concentration on travel, movies, music, sporting events and food. The company has announced a number of significant enhancements to its reporting of the Careers category.

Movies including Spiderman 2 and Fahrenheit 9/11 contributed to substantial increases in traffic to related sites including tickets and general entertainment. There was a 12% increase in unique visitors to the Retail-Tickets category with nearly every site in it, including Moviefone, Fandango and Tickets.com, recording double-digit traffic increases between May and June. Music retailing sites also boomed.

Summer travel planning helped drive the Travel-Car Rental category up 17%, making it the top gaining category in June. The top cruise vacation sites made major gains, while car rental sites Thrifty.com, Hertz.com, Avis.com, Dollar.com and Alamo.com all saw increases in unique visitors of at least 10% between May and June. Traffic to United Airlines and Priceline.com jumped by 45% and 39%, respectively, landing these two sites among the top ten gaining properties in June.

Interest in summer recipes drove increases at top food-related sites, with a 37% increase at KraftFoods.com helping to push the Hobbies/Lifestyles-Food category up 11%, while the barbecue / grilling season saw OmahaSteaks.com and Cooking.com posting increases of 34% and 41% respectively. Dieting sites also gained.

Corporate acquisitions drove several big traffic increases: AskJeeves acquired Interactive Search Holdings and grew 150% in the month to 39 million unique visitors in June. Monster Worldwide's purchase of social networking resource Tickle resulted in a 58% increase in traffic while the acquisition of Internet yellow pages site Switchboard helped InfoSpace increase visitor numbers by 44%.

Speculation about an increase in interest rates may explain an 11% increase in traffic to the Financial Information / Advice category.

comScore also announced enhancements to its reporting of the Careers category, in order to assess Careers sites on a more level playing field, with 'increased granularity and commercial relevance'. The online career services sector has grown by almost 50% in the last 12 months, with nearly 47 million Americans visiting sites in the category in June 2004.

The newly named Career Services and Development category will now include the following subcategories:

Career Resources - includes sites that contain content or services for the following career-related areas: Job Details, Resume Posting, Career Advice, Salary Information, Interview Skills, Negotiation Skills
Job Search - including specific tracking of results pages that visitors receive after conducting a job search
Training and Education - for content and services that help people advance their careers and educations

All the following tables show total US users including home, work and university locations for June 2004, Source: comScore Media Metrix.

Top 50 Properties June 2004
Rank	Property	Unique Visitors (000)
-	Total Internet Users	156,436
1	Yahoo! Sites	115,355
2	MSN-Microsoft Sites	113,871
3	Time Warner Network	108,852
4	Google Sites	63,710
5	eBay	8,311
6	Ask Jeeves	39,275
7	Terra Lycos	37,137
8	About/Primedia	34,223
9	Amazon Sites	32,855
10	Monster Worldwide	27,803
11	Viacom Online	26,721
12	Verizon Communications Corp.	25,339
13	Real.com Network	23,855
14	Weather Channel, The	23,534
15	Walt Disney Internet Group	22,706
16	Weatherbug.com Property	22,509
17	CNET Networks	21,280
18	Symantec	21,072
19	Shopping.com Sites	20,180
20	InfoSpace Network	19,247

Top Ten Gaining Properties by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors *
	Property	May-04	Jun-04	%Change	Rank by Unique Visitors
		(000)	(000)
	Total Internet Users	156,313	156,436	0%	N/A
1	Ask Jeeves	15,728	39,275	150%	6
2	Monster Worldwide	17,624	17,624	58%	11
3	United Airlines	2,900	4,204	45%	179
4	InfoSpace Network	13,406	19,247	44%	21
5	Chance Warner	3,012	4,267	42%	175
6	ameriquestmortgage.com	2,072	2,072	40%	246
7	priceline.com	7,718	10,701	39%	51
8	Barnes & Noble	4,625	6,243	35%	107
9	ediets.com	5,565	7,381	33%	86
10	neopets.com	3,919	5,124	31%	139
* includes only sites ranked among the top 250 properties in June

Top Ten Gaining Categories by Unique Visitors
	Property	May-04	Jun-04	%Change
		(000)	(000)
	Total Internet Users	156,313	156,436	0%
1	Travel-Car Rental	5,125	5,998	17%
2	Retail-Music	25,650	29,902	17%
3	Travel-Ground/Cruise	7,913	9,148	16%
4	Retail-Food	10,263	11,650	14%
5	Retail-Tickets	26,602	29,759	12%
6	Hobbies/Lifestyles-Food	24,341	26,942	11%
7	Financial Info/Advice	29,756	32,866	11%
8	Retail-Movies	22,323	24,645	10%
9	Career Services and Dev.	42,629	46,918	10%
10	Health-Information	36,996	40,666	10%

Ad Focus RankingUnique Visitors (000)
Rank	Property	Unique Visitors(000)
	Total Internet Users	156,436

1	Advertising.com**	118,621
2	Yahoo!	113,477
3	MSN	101,510
4	AOL	83,769
5	yahoo.com Home Page	76,058
6	google.com	62,046
7	Yahoo! Search	60,072
8	Yahoo! Mail	59,409
9	Yahoo! Web Search	58,818
10	Google Web Search	58,150
11	MSN.com Home Page	55,573
12	MaxOnline**	52,578
13	Tribal Fusion**	51,235
14	AOL Email	48,420
15	MSN Search	48,311
16	MSN Hotmail	48,127
17	AOL (APP)	47,560
18	MaxOnline Network**	45,800
19	24/7 Real Media**	43,253
20	AOL Prop Email	42,895