Google Ranked Top Internet Property - Again

October 24, 2008

comScore, Inc. released its monthly report showing the top Internet properties based on U.S. traffic last week. The September 2008 report doesn’t include any drastic surprises with Google continuing to reign supreme in the online world. The Top 10 Internet Properties (U.S.) for September 2008 according to comScore’s report are:

Google Sites: 144.3 million unique visitors
Yahoo! Sites: 142.0 million unique visitors
Microsoft Sites: 122.3 million unique visitors
AOL LLC: 108.3 million unique visitors
Fox Interactive Media: 87.4 million unique visitors
eBay: 69.3 million unique visitors
Ask Network: 62.1 million unique visitors
Wikimedia Foundation Sites (owner of Wikipedia.org): 60.2 million unique visitors
Amazon Sites: 55.7 million unique visitors
Glam Media: 52.2 million unique visitors

There is no doubt (based on the results in the comScore report) which brands dominate the Internet. The highest rated sites are dominated by technology companies, media organizations, and telecommunications. The highest ranked retailer was Wal-Mart at #22 with 29.0 million unique visitors during September 2008, and no consumer product companies are on the list (unless you count Disney Online which is not really a consumer products company or site).

It appears based on this report that there is a lot of room for growth among consumer product companies and manufacturers online. Take a look at the top 10 gaining categories by percentage change in unique visitors from the prior month (U.S.) during September 2008 from the comScore report below:

Politics: up 43% to 189.0 million unique visitors
Career Services and Development - Training and Education: up 21% to 14.0 million unique visitors
Genealogy: up 14% to 9.6 million unique visitors
Religion: up 12% to 20.4 million unique visitors
Retail - Food: up 11% to 15.1 million unique visitors
Education - Information: up 11% to 66.0 million unique visitors
Retail - Computer Software: up 11% to 20.3 million unique visitors
Online Trading: up 10% to 11.4 million unique visitors
Business/Finance - News/Research: up 9% to 58.8 million unique visitors
Technology - News: up 7% to 43.6 million unique visitors

comScore notes that the economic downturn and upcoming election clearly affected results for the politics and online trading and the business/finance categories, and the start of a new school year affected the results for the eduction and career services and the development - training and education categories.

These results aren’t surprising at this time of year, however, with the holiday season getting closer, one would think that more retail categories would have seen a boost in September than just the retail - food and retail - computer software categories. Could this be foretelling of the 2008 holiday retail season? Perhaps it’s too early to tell, but retail sites are somewhat surprisingly missing.

What do you think of the brands on the list of the top U.S. Internet properties and the categories that got big traffic boosts in September?

Image: Flickr

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