comScore Media Metrix Ranks Top 50 U.S. Web Properties for January 2011

Americans Flood Tax Sites as Season Begins

Travel and Careers in Focus at Start of New Year

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Feb 21, 2011, 02:30 ET

RESTON, Va., Feb. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly analysis of U.S. web activity at the top online properties for January 2011 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. Americans' Web activity in January saw gains in a few main content categories: Taxes, Travel and Career Resources. Many Americans wasted no time in beginning their annual tax filing duties, as the number of visitors to Tax sites surged. Travel and careers were both major topics of Internet browsing in January, collectively accounting for seven of the top gaining categories for the month.

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"The Internet has proven to be a great resource for Americans preparing to file their taxes, with many sites offering free filing assistance in some capacity," said Jeff Hackett, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. "Also top-of-mind for many Americans this time of year is spring break travel and warmer getaways, which sent more than half of all Internet users to a travel site in January, marking the category's highest reach on record."

Early Filers Flock to Tax Sites

Tax sites experienced a strong surge of activity in January as tax prep season officially commenced. The category attracted 26.8 million visitors in January, representing a 345-percent increase from December. Categories leaders such as TurboTax, H&R Block and TaxACT all achieved triple-digit gains during the month.

American Travel Plans Take Shape

Several Travel subcategories saw a spike in activity during the month, including Transactions, Ground/Cruise, Online Travel Agents and Travel Information. The overall category drew 114.6 million Americans, representing the category's highest reach on record at 54 percent. Travel Transactions sites achieved the strongest gains, up 29 percent to 3.5 million visitors. TravelPN.com led the category with 781,000 unique visitors (up 26 percent), followed by WWTE.com with 551,000 visitors (up 106 percent), OneTime.com with 508,000 (up 39 percent) and Viator.com with 497,000 (up 31 percent).

Ground/Cruise sites also experienced significant growth, up 20 percent to 13.3 million unique visitors. Amtrak.com was the category leader with 2.2 million visitors, followed closely by Carnival Cruise Lines with 2.1 million visitors (up 113 percent). FirstGroup plc ranked third in the category with 1.7 million visitors, while VacationsToGo.com Sites and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. saw 1.5 million visitors (up 67 percent and 36 percent, respectively).

New Year, New Career

Many Americans started the off the new year looking for Career Services and Development resources, with more than 80.2 million people visiting the category in January. The Job Search subcategory saw the most prominent growth at 24 percent, ranking third among top gaining categories for January. 27.2 million Americans visited a Job Search site during the month, with Indeed.com Job Search taking the top spot with 11.6 million visitors (up 20 percent). CareerBuilder.com Job Search drew 10.9 million visitors (up 27 percent), followed by Monster.com Job Search with 10.0 million visitors (up 35 percent), HotJobs Job Search with 5.0 million visitors (up 25 percent) and SimplyHired.com Job Search with 4.9 million visitors (up 29 percent).

The Career Resources subcategory displayed a slightly shuffled version of the top sites at the property level. Monster, Inc. ranked #1 with 25.5 million visitors in January (up 13 percent), followed by CareerBuilder LLC with 25.1 million visitors (up 29 percent), Indeed with 13.2 million (up 20 percent) and SimplyHired, Inc. with 5.6 million (up 28 percent).

Top 50 Properties

Yahoo! Sites ranked as the #1 property in January with 178.9 million visitors, followed by Google Sites with 178.5 million and Microsoft Sites with 176.8 million. Tribune Interactive climbed 9 positions to rank as the #32 property overall with 31.8 million visitors. LinkedIn.com was not far behind at #36 after jumping 11 positions in the ranking with 29.8 million visitors. Sites that newly appeared on the top 50 ranking in January included Huffington Post (#41), Netflix.com (#44), Yelp.com (#45), Monster, Inc. (#47) and Bank of America (#48).

Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking

Google Ad Network led the January Ad Focus ranking with a reach of 93.1 percent of Americans online, followed by Yahoo! Network Plus with an 85.5-percent reach, AOL Advertising with 85.0 percent and Yahoo! Sites with 84.5 percent. Facebook.com crossed into the top 10 for the first time in January with a 72.3-percent reach.

Table 1


*comScore Top 10 Gaining Properties by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors (U.S.) January 2011 vs. December 2010 Total U.S. – Home, Work and University Locations Source: comScore Media Metrix**
	Total Unique Visitors (000)
	Dec-10	Jan-11	% Change	Rank by Unique Visitors
Total Internet : Total Audience	211,860	211,621	0	N/A
ED.GOV	5,220	8,433	62	191
ABC Television	6,365	9,715	53	167
Travelocity	5,887	8,279	41	198
Trulia Network	5,581	7,565	36	210
Bankrate.com Sites	4,802	6,465	35	244
CSMonitor.com	4,648	6,235	34	250
Dominion Enterprises	8,263	11,072	34	145
VNU e-Media Websites	5,609	7,381	32	213
CandyStand.com	4,966	6,527	31	240
Reuters Sites	8,310	10,759	29	149

*Ranking based on the top 250 properties in January 2011. Excludes entities whose growth was primarily due to implementation of Media Metrix 360 unified digital audience measurement.

Table 2


comScore Top 10 Gaining Site Categories by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors (U.S.) January 2011 vs. December 2010 Total U.S. – Home, Work and University Locations Source: comScore Media Metrix
	Total Unique Visitors (000)
	Dec-10	Jan-11	% Change
Total Internet : Total Audience	211,860	211,621	0
Business/Finance – Taxes	6,016	26,790	345
Travel – Transactions	2,734	3,526	29
Career Services and Development – Job Search	21,931	27,244	24
Travel – Ground/Cruise	11,083	13,338	20
Real Estate	55,521	65,737	18
Career Services and Development – Career Resources	47,047	55,066	17
Travel – Online Travel Agents	33,760	38,586	14
Travel - Information	49,491	56,244	14
Career Services and Development – Training and Education	12,180	13,828	14
Business to Business	48,662	55,234	14

Table 3


comScore Top 50 Properties (U.S.) January 2011 Total U.S. – Home, Work and University Locations Source: comScore Media Metrix
Rank	Property	Unique Visitors (000)	Rank	Property	Unique Visitors (000)
	Total Internet : Total Audience	211,621
1	Yahoo! Sites	178,864	26	ESPN	39,683
2	Google Sites	178,516	27	Federated Media Publishing	37,572
3	Microsoft Sites	176,770	28	Wal-Mart	36,736
4	FACEBOOK.COM	153,020	29	Break Media Network	35,769
5	AOL, Inc.	110,996	30	Superpages.com Network	35,111
6	Ask Network	95,719	31	Adobe Sites	34,170
7	Turner Digital	91,314	32	Tribune Interactive	31,786
8	Viacom Digital	89,450	33	AT&T Interactive Network	31,551
9	Glam Media	86,533	34	WeatherBug Property	31,351
10	CBS Interactive	85,573	35	iVillage.com: The Womens Network	30,464
11	Amazon Sites	82,608	36	LINKEDIN.COM	29,847
12	Wikimedia Foundation Sites	78,563	37	Alloy Digital Network	29,360
13	Demand Media	75,454	38	NBC Universal	29,106
14	Apple Inc.	71,952	39	Scripps Networks Interactive Inc.	28,943
15	New York Times Digital	71,887	40	Everyday Health	28,020
16	eBay	65,913	41	Huffington Post	27,645
17	Fox Interactive Media	62,152	42	Disney Online	27,611
18	VEVO	56,178	43	WordPress	27,038
19	Answers.com Sites	55,467	44	NETFLIX.COM	27,002
20	Comcast Corporation	54,498	45	YELP.COM	26,093
21	craigslist, inc.	53,370	46	Target Corporation	25,737
22	NetShelter Technology Media	44,697	47	Monster, Inc.	25,482
23	Technorati Media	44,677	48	Bank of America	25,384
24	Weather Channel, The	43,978	49	Verizon Communications Corporation	25,375
25	Gannett Sites	40,372	50	YellowBook Network	25,329

Table 4


comScore Ad Focus Ranking (U.S.) January 2011 Total U.S. – Home, Work and University Locations Source: comScore Media Metrix
Rank	Property	Unique Visitors (000)	% Reach	Rank	Property	Unique Visitors (000)	% Reach
	Total Internet : Total Audience	211,621	100.0
1	Google Ad Network**	197,076	93.1	26	YOUTUBE.COM*	114,381	54.1
2	Yahoo! Network Plus**	180,843	85.5	27	CPX Interactive**	112,347	53.1
3	AOL Advertising**	179,956	85.0	28	AOL, Inc.	110,996	52.5
4	Yahoo! Sites	178,864	84.5	29	Adify**	108,048	51.1
5	Google	170,325	80.5	30	Kontera**	105,594	49.9
6	Turn Media Platform**	168,577	79.7	31	Ask Network	95,719	45.2
7	ValueClick Networks**	168,499	79.6	32	Bing	93,141	44.0
8	24/7 Real Media**	165,127	78.0	33	Undertone**	92,884	43.9
9	AdBrite**	156,061	73.7	34	Technorati Media**	90,270	42.7
10	FACEBOOK.COM	153,020	72.3	35	Glam Media	86,533	40.9
11	Collective Display**	152,859	72.2	36	Windows Live	78,725	37.2
12	Vibrant Media**	151,263	71.5	37	Meebo	77,789	36.8
13	Tribal Fusion**	146,111	69.0	38	Demand Media	75,454	35.7
14	FOX Audience Network**	144,819	68.4	39	ShareThis	75,343	35.6
15	Microsoft Media Network US**	143,811	68.0	40	MediaWhiz**	73,166	34.6
16	AudienceScience**	142,400	67.3	41	AMAZON.COM	69,183	32.7
17	Casale Media - MediaNet**	138,619	65.5	42	Monster Career Ad Network (CAN)**	65,933	31.2
18	Burst Media**	137,765	65.1	43	MTV Networks Music	61,626	29.1
19	Traffic Marketplace**	137,150	64.8	44	Lotame Solutions**	60,539	28.6
20	Specific Media**	136,893	64.7	45	Dedicated Media**	54,175	25.6
21	ContextWeb**	136,491	64.5	46	CNN	46,422	21.9
22	AdBlade Network**	133,343	63.0	47	Myspace	44,795	21.2
23	Adconion Media Group**	131,990	62.4	48	NetShelter Technology Media	44,697	21.1
24	MSN	130,215	61.5	49	Technorati Media	44,677	21.1
25	interclick**	125,173	59.2	50	About	42,877	20.3

Reach % denotes the percentage of the total Internet population that viewed a particular entity at least once in January. For instance, Yahoo! Sites was seen by 84.5 percent of the 212 million Internet users in January.
* Entity has assigned some portion of traffic to other syndicated entities.
** Denotes an advertising network.

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 business analytics. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

SOURCE comScore, Inc.