Back-to-School Frenzy Impacts Web Activity as Americans Prepare for New School Year; Traffic Driven to Sports Sites for NFL Coverage and Fantasy Football Drafts
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 2010 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. Back-to-school season accelerated the growth of several online categories during the month, from Books and Apparel to Educational Resources and Consumer Goods. Sports sites were also popular in August as Americans geared up for the NFL season and Fantasy Football drafts.
“Summer vacation came to a close in August, and millions of Americans turned to the Internet to prepare for the new school year,” said Jeff Hackett, senior vice president of comScore Media Metrix. “The convenience of back-to-school shopping online appeals to more Americans every year, as incentives such as free shipping for clothing and school supplies become more prevalent.”
Americans Read Up on Book Sites
Retail Book sites allowed parents and students to conveniently browse and order books for the new school year. More than 27.5 million people visited a Book site in August, an 11-percent increase versus July, making it the highest growing site category for the month. Barnes & Noble captured the top spot with 8.3 million visitors (up 13 percent), followed by Borders Group, Inc. with 3.0 million visitors, BookSpan Property with 2.3 million visitors and AbeBooks with 1.6 million visitors (up 45 percent). Textbook rental site Chegg.com experienced significant growth during the month, surging 290 percent to 1.4 million visitors.
School Supply Shopping Not Just For Bricks and Mortar
Parents took school supply shopping to the web, with the Consumer Goods category growing 5 percent to 26.2 million visitors in August. Staples.com Sites ranked #1 in the category with 8.0 million visitors during the month (up 16 percent), followed by Office Depot with 5.1 million (up 20 percent), QVC Sites with 4.3 million and OfficeMax with 2.9 million (up 32 percent).
Apparel sites also ranked among the top gaining categories, growing to 65.4 million visitors during the month (up 5 percent), as Americans browsed fall clothing sales for all occasions, including back-to-school. Zappos Sites ranked #1 in the category with 6.4 million visitors, followed by Limitedbrands with 6.3 million visitors and Nike with 5.1 million (up 9 percent). OldNavy.com grew 15 percent to 4.9 million visitors, followed by Nordstrom.com with 3.7 million and Gap Online with 3.4 million (up 32 percent).
Sports Sites Hike as NFL Season Begins
With the start of the NFL season, traffic to Sports sites picked up during the month reaching 123.5 million visitors, a 5-percent gain versus July. Yahoo! Sports, known as a popular destination for fantasy football, ranked #1 in the category with 48.2 million visitors, representing a 23-percent increase from the prior month. FOXSports.com on MSN ranked second with 26.2 million visitors, followed by ESPN with 25.4 million visitors. NFL Internet Group doubled its audience versus July, grabbing the #4 spot with 19.5 million visitors, ranking as the top gaining property for the month.
Top 50 Properties
Yahoo! Sites ranked as the #1 property in August with 179.0 million visitors, followed by Google Sites with 178.8 million and Microsoft Sites with 165.3 million. Viacom Digital jumped 7 positions in the ranking with 81.5 million visitors, while iVillage.com: The Womens Network also climbed 7 spots to 35.3 million visitors.
Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking
BrightRoll Video Network led the August Ad Focus ranking with a potential reach of 99 percent of Americans online, followed by TubeMogul Video Ad Platform with a 97-percent potential reach. SpotXchange Video Ad Network ranked third capturing 97-percent reach, while Firefly Video came in fourth with a potential reach of 93 percent. Both TubeMogul and Firefly appeared on the top 50 ad focus ranking for the first time in August.
Table 1
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comScore Top 10 Gaining Properties by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors* (U.S.)
August 2010 vs. July 2010
Total U.S. – Home, Work and University Locations
Source: comScore Media Metrix .
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Jul-10 Aug-10 % Change Rank by
Unique
Visitors
Total Internet : Total Audience 213,584 212,616 0 N/A
NFL Internet Group 9,744 19,477 100 63
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. 7,473 10,254 37 150
LIMEWIRE.COM 7,713 9,801 27 155
GROUPON.COM 5,302 6,508 23 219
WIZARD101.COM 4,987 5,974 20 242
CollegeHumor Media 10,283 12,171 18 124
Staples.com Sites 6,874 7,986 16 195
Mattel Sites 6,260 7,244 16 204
Gap, Inc. 6,319 7,283 15 202
Nextag.com Sites 7,578 8,696 15 177
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*Ranking based on the top 250 properties in August 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.)
August 2010 vs. July 2010
Total U.S. – Home, Work and University Locations
Source: comScore Media Metrix .
Total Unique Visitors (000)
Jul-10 Aug-10 % Change
Total Internet : Total Audience 213,584 212,616 0
Retail – Books 24,911 27,527 11
Career Services and Development – Training and Education 11,860 12,601 6
Community – Food 64,165 67,889 6
Retail – Consumer Goods 24,926 26,193 5
Retail – Apparel 62,383 65,411 5
Retail – Jewelry/Luxury Goods/Accessories 14,996 15,722 5
Sports 117,936 123,510 5
Retail – Food 16,641 17,370 4
Community – Religion/Spirituality 25,946 26,928 4
Entertainment – TV 115,470 119,619 4
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Please follow this link to view tables 3 and 4: http://comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/9/comScore_Media_Metrix_Ranks_Top_50_U.S._Web_Properties_for_August_2010
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.
