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 education 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
Susan Gunelius is the author of 10 marketing, social media, branding, copywriting, and technology books, and she is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company. She also owns Women on Business, an award-wining blog for business women. She is a featured columnist for Entrepreneur.com and Forbes.com, and her marketing-related articles have appeared on websites such as MSNBC.com, BusinessWeek.com, TodayShow.com, and more.
She has over 20 years of experience in the marketing field having spent the first decade of her career directing marketing programs for some of the largest companies in the world, including divisions of AT&T and HSBC. Today, her clients include large and small companies around the world and household brands like Citigroup, Cox Communications, Intuit, and more. Susan is frequently interviewed about marketing and branding by television, radio, print, and online media organizations, and she speaks about these topics at events around the world. You can connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+.
