Valentine’s Day Brings Traffic to Personals, e-Cards, and Gift Sites; Tax Sites Continue to Grow As Filing Deadline Gets Nearer
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-growing properties and site categories for February 2010 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. Valentine’s Day celebrations sent millions of Americans to Personals, e-Cards, and Gifts Sites as they planned for the occasion, while millions also flocked to tax sites as the April 15 filing deadline inched closer.
“Online personals sites reached record levels in February as millions of Americans looked for the special someone to share Valentine’s Day with,” said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. “Visitation to tax sites also continued to build with the tax deadline getting closer and an increasing number of Americans turning to the Web for the convenience of filing their taxes online.”
Due to February being the shortest month of the year, gains in Internet usage across site categories were muted relative to typical months.
Valentine’s Day Romance Sweeps the Internet
e-Cards ranked as one of the top-gaining site categories in February, growing 7 percent to 23.1 million visitors, as consumers sent their loved ones Valentine’s Day cards. MyFunCards.com led the category with 6.3 million visitors, up 75 percent versus January. Evite.com attracted 5 million visitors during the month, followed by AG Interactive with 4.8 million (up 13 percent), 123Greetings.com with 3.0 million (up 15 percent), and Yahoo! Greetings with 869,000 (up 7 percent).
Flowers/Gifts/Greetings sites also saw a 7-percent gain in February, growing to 32.3 million visitors. AmericanGreetings Property grabbed the #1 position with 10.6 million visitors, while ProFlowers.com surged 412 percent to 5.3 million visitors. Gifts.com ranked third with 4.3 million visitors, followed by Hallmark with 3.2 million (up 12 percent). 1-800-Flowers.Com, Inc. closely followed Hallmark with nearly 3.2 million visitors (up 97 percent).
Online Personals sites also grew in popularity during the month, experiencing a 5-percent increase to 24.2 million visitors. eHarmony ranked as the #1 Personals site during the month, attracting 5.0 million Americans (up 82 percent), while Match.com Sites ranked second with 3.4 million visitors. PlentyOfFish.com attracted 2.8 million visitors, followed closely by SinglesNet.com with 2.6 million.
Tax Sites Guide Americans through Filing Frenzy
Tax sites saw another month of gains as the filing deadline approached and Americans looked for tax information or to file their returns online. The category attracted 32.1 million visitors in February, up 12 percent from January.
Auto Industry Rebound and Recalls Attract Consumer Interest Online
In February, auto consumers were occupied with government policy, recalls, new model releases, and special offers, which boosted traffic to Auto Manufacturer sites. The category saw 24.6 million visitors during the month, up 5 percent since January, with General Motors taking the top spot with 5.8 million visitors. Toyota ranked second in the category with 5.4 million visitors (up 7 percent), followed by Ford Motor Company with 4.8 million, Honda with 3.6 million (up 7 percent), Nissan with 2.5 million (up 24 percent), and Chrysler with 2.1 million (up 7 percent).
Table 1
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comScore Top 10 Gaining Properties by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors* (U.S.)
February 2010 vs. January 2010
Total U.S. – Home, Work and University Locations
Source: comScore Media Metrix
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Total Unique Visitors (000)
Jan-10 Feb-10 % Change Rank by
Unique
Visitors
Total Internet : Total Audience 208,940 209,749 0 N/A
URBANDICTIONARY.COM 5,365 12,566 134 105
FORMSPRING.ME 2,894 6,492 124 210
INFOLINKS.COM 11,576 15,730 36 80
AVG Technologies 4,400 5,968 36 233
Betawave Media 7,538 10,076 34 134
GN Kids (Gorilla Nation) 4,379 5,640 29 241
GSN Games Network 4,934 6,353 29 220
AccuWeather Sites 7,710 9,229 20 149
ZIMBIO.COM 7,443 8,606 16 157
Go Daddy Group 4,828 5,562 15 244
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*Ranking based on the top 250 properties in February 2010. Excludes entities whose growth was primarily due to implementation of Media Metrix 360 unified digital audience measurement.
Table 2
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comScore Top 10 Gaining Site Categories by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors (U.S.)
February 2010 vs. January 2010
Total U.S. – Home, Work and University Locations
Source: comScore Media Metrix
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Total Unique Visitors (000)
Jan-10 Feb-10 % Change
Total Internet : Total Audience 208,940 209,749 0
Business/Finance – Taxes 28,760 32,068 12
Games – Online Gaming 83,373 90,796 9
Retail – Computer Software 44,557 47,896 7
Services – e-cards 21,518 23,123 7
Retail – Flowers/Gifts/Greetings 30,128 32,283 7
Directories/Resources 159,159 169,512 7
Personals 22,957 24,205 5
Auto – Manufacturer 23,308 24,554 5
Entertainment – Kids 53,852 56,527 5
Social Networking 175,410 183,983 5
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comScore will be excluding the Top 50 Properties and the Top 50 Ad-Focus rankings until May 2010 when the unified digital measurement transition period concludes.
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.
