Education Sites Gain as Students Head Back to School; Americans Need a Good Laugh as Summer Rolls to an End
RESTON, VA – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, released its monthly analysis of U.S. Web activity at the top online properties for August 2009 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. Education sites gained as students headed back to school, while Humor sites attracted heavy visitation as many looked to laugh in the waning days of summer vacation. Home sites also grew as Americans sought to redecorate their homes, furnish new apartments, or harvest their backyard gardens.
“August is back-to-school season for students, and many turned to the Web to prepare for the upcoming school year,” said Jack Flanagan, comScore executive vice president. “Others made use of their last days of summer pursuing leisure activities online, including visiting humor sites and tending to their homes and gardens.”
Back-to-School Season Drives Gains at Education Sites
Back-to-school season propelled gains at education sites in August, with the category growing 10 percent to 97.5 million visitors. Pearson Education led all Education sites with 12 million visitors (up 14 percent), followed by HotChalk with 7.7 million visitors (up 31 percent) and ClassesUSA with 7 million visitors (up 2 percent). Blackboard.com also saw strong gains, growing 67 percent to 2.4 million visitors.
Laughter is the Best Medicine
Americans turned to Humor sites for entertainment as summer vacation came to an end. The category grew 21 percent in August to 33.7 million visitors, representing a high for the category in the past year. Break.com led the category with nearly 5.6 million visitors, followed by Comedy Central with 4.4 million, and National Lampoon Humor Network with 4.3 million (up 7 percent). Wimp.com saw significant growth during the month with a 58-percent increase.
Home Improvement on the Minds of Many Americans
Many Americans find new apartments in August, or enjoy refreshing a home’s look as the season changes, resulting in an 18-percent increase in visitation to Home sites. About.com Home & Garden led the category with 3.5 million visitors during the month. Ehow Home and Garden grabbed the #2 position with 3.5 million, followed by AOL Home with 3.4 million (up 14 percent). iVillage Home and Garden surged 326 percent in August to 3.3 million visitors.
Getting Down to Business
Business-to-Business was another fast-gaining category in August, growing 17 percent to 38 million visitors. MerchantCircle.com led the category rankings with 6.9 million visitors. Reed Business Information sites (including Hotfrog.com, and BuyerZone.com) grabbed the #2 position with 4.7 million visitors (up 6 percent). Yahoo! Small Business was another trusted source of information during the month with more than 3 million visitors, up 83 percent.
Top 50 Properties
Google Sites once again led as the most visited property in August with 161 million visitors, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 158 million visitors and Microsoft Sites with 130 million visitors. Facebook.com held its #5 ranking with 92 million visitors, up 5 percent from the previous month. The Mozilla Organization ascended 6 positions to #24 with 32 million visitors, while iVillage.com also jumped 6 spots to #41 with more than 21 million visitors.
Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking
AOL Advertising (renamed from Platform-A) led the August Ad Focus ranking, reaching 91 percent of all Americans online. Yahoo! Network ranked second, reaching 88 percent of the population, while Google jumped one spot to #3 with an 84-percent reach. Adconion Media Group climbed 5 positions to the #20 spot with 129.6 million unique visitors, reaching nearly 66 percent of the U.S. Internet audience.
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Table 1
comScore Top 10 Gaining Properties by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors* (U.S.)
August 2009 vs. July 2009
Total U.S. – Home, Work and University Locations
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Jul-09 Aug-09 % Change Rank by
Unique
Visitors
Total Internet : Total Audience 195,538 197,311 1 N/A
NFL Internet Group 7,862 14,812 88 66
NameMedia 5,576 9,905 78 105
Internet Brands, Inc. 8,936 12,805 43 76
Sugar, Inc – PopSugar Network 3,289 4,452 35 250
CafeMom Network 7,441 9,963 34 104
EVERSAVE.COM 4,231 5,623 33 199
HotChalk 5,885 7,688 31 146
The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. 4,290 5,463 27 206
American Express 7,061 8,937 27 122
STACK Media 3,668 4,559 24 244
*Ranking based on the top 250 properties in August 2009. Excludes entities whose growth was primarily due to implementation of Media Metrix 360 hybrid audience measurement.
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Table 2
comScore Top 10 Gaining Site Categories by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors (U.S.)
August 2009 vs. July 2009
Total U.S. – Home, Work and University Locations
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Jul-09 Aug-09 % Change
Total Internet : Total Audience 195,538 197,311 1
Entertainment – Humor 27,758 33,691 21
Lifestyle – Home 26,125 30,805 18
Business to Business 32,608 38,286 17
Career – Training and Education 7,084 7,905 12
Finance – News/Research 58,220 64,278 10
Education 88,517 97,490 10
Weather 69,524 76,482 10
Religion/Spirituality 20,394 22,419 10
Lotto/Sweepstakes 28,264 30,890 9
Pharmacy 4,820 5,194 8
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To view tables three and four, please visit the following link: http://comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2009/9/comScore_Media_Metrix_Ranks_Top_50_U.S._Web_Properties_for_August_2009
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.
About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.
