The top 10 online properties, in terms of visitors, remained unchanged in August, albeit the back-to-school season gave a boost to education sites and retail sports/outdoor sites gained traffic in anticipation of fall sports, according to the comScore Media Metrix monthly analysis of activity at top US online properties.
Among other trends noted: August traffic increased to lotto/sweepstakes sites as lottery jackpots reached near record highs, and humor sites gained on the strength of Comedy Central’s spike in traffic.
The data released by comScore:
Top 50 Properties
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Among the highlights:
- Yahoo Sites topped the ranking with more than 135 million visitors.
- CBS Corporation experienced a 16% gain, lifting it six spots to number 24.
- Comcast Corporation also experienced a sizable jump, moving up seven positions to number 26 in the ranking with more than 25 million visitors.
- United Online gained four position, drawing more than 26 million unique visitors in August.
Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking
 
Among the highlights:
- Advertising.com remained atop the Ad Focus Ranking, reaching 89% of the more than 181 million Americans online.
- Specific Media and Google both moved up within the top 10, to numbers six and seven, respectively.
- Adconian media group jumped seven spots to number 21, reaching 43% of the US online population, a 7% increase from July.
- Interclick also continued its climb in the rankings, gaining four spots to number 18.
- Amazon.com and Walmart.com entered the ranking in August at positions 37 and 43, respectively.
High-Growth Sites/Categories
High-Growth Catagories:
- The humor category grew 8% in August, reaching more than 30 million Americans. The increase was largely propelled by gains at Comedy Central from its “Indecision2008” coverage.
- National Lampoon Humor Network led the category with 5.6 million visitors.
- Comedy Central followed with nearly 5 million visitors (up 105%) and Jokeroo Entertainment Inc. with nearly 3 million visitors (up 37%).
High-Growth Sites:Â
 
- Education sites
- The training and education category grew 15% to more than 12 million visitors, making it the top-gaining category for the month.
- College resource site Fastweb led the category with 2.5 million visitors (up 13%), followed by The College Board with nearly 1.9 million visitors (up 12%) and Nellnet, Inc., an education planning and financing company, with 1.4 million visitors (up 11%).
- The education information category increased 8% to more than 63 million visitors, as Dictionary.com Sites led the category with 11.8 million visitors, followed by Answers.com (9.3 million visitors) and Pearson Education (8.6 million visitors).
- Retail sports/outdoors sites
- With the beginning of fall sports and football season, traffic to retail sports/outdoors sites increased 7%, to more than 29 million visitors.
- Foot Locker Sites experienced a 15% gain to 4.6 million visitors to lead the category, followed by eBay Sports US with 4 million visitors and DicksSportingGoods.com with 2.6 million visitors.
- NFL Internet Group, which includes the official NFL team sites, surged 78% to more than 14 million visitors, making it one of top-gaining properties in August.
- Lottery sites
- Multi-state lotteries Mega Millions and Powerball both reached massive jackpots in August causing lotto/sweepstakes sites to rise 8% to more than 31 million visitors for the month.
- Powerball.com surged to 2.3 million visitors (up 123%).
- Megamillions.com traffic swelled to 1.1 million (up 100%).
