Top US Web Properties

An analysis of web traffic trends in March shows that lifestyle sites saw an uptick in traffic, with unique visitors to gay and lesbian sites up 40% month-over-month to 11 million, and visitors to religion and spirituality sites increasing by 11%, to 37.5 million. The data, from comScore's Media Metrix [download page], also suggests that Americans looked to the web to solve their allergy problems as Spring beckoned, with the number of visitors to pharmacy sites jumping by 23%, to 8 million. Read more »

The Valentine's Day holiday had many Americans going online in February to order flowers and gifts for loved ones, according to [download page] new Media Metrix data from comScore. The flowers/gifts/greetings category rose 35% to 26.4 million visitors for the month, putting it second on the list of top-gaining categories, behind tax sites (+45% to 36.9 million), which have been the top-growing category for 3 consecutive months. Read more »

Experian Hitwise, along with its launch of Hitwise Mobile, has released a list of the most visited mobile websites from the week ending February 23, 2013. Beyond the completely unsurprising finding that Google ranks as the top site, with 17.3% market share of visits, it's interesting to see that Twitter cracked the top 10, in at #8 with 0.6% share of visits. That's notable because in comScore's recent rankings of the top 50 web properties for January, Twitter only came in at #26. Read more »

9 in 10 American internet users (or 194 million Americans) visited a retail site in December, according to [download page] the latest data from the comScore Media Metrix. Retail sites represented 5 of the top 10 fastest-growing site categories in December, led by flowers, gifts, and greetings sites (+24% to 32.2 million unique visitors) and jewelry, luxury goods, and accessories sites (+18% to 29.1 million unique visitors). Read more »

"Facebook" was the top search term in the US this year, accounting for 4.1% of all searches, representing a 33% increase from 2011, according to an analysis of the year’s top 1,000 search terms by Experian Hitwise. Four variations of the popular social networking site were among the top 10 terms, accounting for 5.6% of searches overall, a 27% increase from 2011. This year marks the 7th straight year that a social network search term has topped the list, and the 4th consecutive year that Facebook has been the leading search term. Read more »

An impressive 87% of the online population visited a retail site in November as the holiday season began, according to [download page] the latest data from the comScore Media Metrix. After holding down 3 of the top 10 fastest-growing site categories in October, retail site categories represented a dominant 9 of the top 10 in November, led by toys sites (+30% to 23.9 million unique visitors) and consumer electronics sites (+29% to 59.7 million unique visitors). Read more »

Multiple reports have indicated that consumers began their holiday shopping early this year, and the latest Media Metrix data [download page] from comScore appears to support this trend. Retail sites boasted 3 of the top 10 fastest-growing site categories for October, as consumers got an early jump on holiday shopping and shopped for Halloween. For the month, flowers, gifts, and greetings sites (31%) edged out political news sites (30%) as the top-gaining category. Read more »

Americans viewed nearly 11 billion video ads in October, as data from comScore Video Metrics reveals. That is a sharp spike after 3 flat months (9.6 billion in July, 9.5 billion in August and 9.4 billion in September). Video ads reached 52% of the US population in October, up 1% point. But they reached those viewers an average of 68 times in October, up significantly from an average of 60 times in September. Read more »

Americans viewed 9.4 billion video ads in September, as data from comScore VideoMetrix reveals. That is a slight dip from August's 9.5 billion ads, but, fairly positive news after the June-to-July 2012 plummet from 11 billion to 9.6 billion. Turning from ads to content videos, overall, 181 million US internet users watched in excess of 39 billion online content videos in September. Reaching 85% of the US internet audience, that represents a small dip from August’s 87.7%. Read more »

Americans looked to incentive sites in greater numbers last month to help them save money, according to the latest comScore Media Metrix data. The number of unique visitors to incentive sites grew by 7% month-over-month, reaching 24.6 million, the second fastest-growing category for September. Education information sites took the top spot, enjoying their yearly spike in September and gaining 9% to reach 82.5 million unique visitors. Read more »