Top 50 Website Rankings for October Issued, Retail Sites Surge

As various retail categories gained in the run-up to the holidays, in October the top 10 web properties remain unchanged from September, and Yahoo Sites again topped the rankings, with 137 million visitors, according to the comScore Media Metrix monthly analysis of activity at top U.S. online properties, reports MarketingCharts.

Google Sites, Time Warner Network and Microsoft Sites - all with more than 100 million unique visitors - rounded out the top 4 web properties, according to the data.

The October data released by comScore:

Top 50 Properties (Unique Visitors)

Among the highlights (see table of top 50 web properties in oct.):

• AT&T Inc. gained five positions to number 15 with 33.7 million visitors.
• Glam Media jumped nine spots to number 23, attracting nearly 25.5 million visitors.
• YellowPages.com Network moved up five spots to number 25 with 24.9 million visitors.
• Connexus and WorldNow-LMN Sites both entered the top 50 ranking, at positions 46 and 49, respectively.

Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking (Advertising Reach)

Among the highlights (see table of top 50 Ad Focus sites):

• Advertising.com remained atop the Ad Focus ranking in October, reaching 87 percent of the more than 182 million Americans online.
• Tribal Fusion catapulted three positions to grab the No. 2 spot, reaching 76 percent of the Internet population.
• Google Ad Network also rose three spots to capture the No. 3 position in the ranking.
• Blue Lithium and Casale Media Network both moved up one spot in the top 10 to capture positions seven and nine, respectively.
• ADSDAQ by ContextWeb (23) and IMDB.COM (49) both entered the ranking this month, reaching 41 percent and 13 percent of the online audience, respectively.

High-Growth Sites & Categories

A popular Monopoly promotion helped make McDonald’s the top-gaining web property (increase in percentage change of visitors) in October. (See table of top 10 gaining properties, as well as table of top 10 gaining categories.)

Card and Gift Sites

With both Halloween and Sweetest Day celebrated in October, e-card and flowers/gifts/greetings sites experienced a seasonal surge in traffic:

• E-card sites gained 23 percent to reach 33.8 million visitors, making it the top-gaining category for the month.
• The category was led by the American Greetings Properties with 10.3 million visitors (up 56 percent), followed by Evite.com with 8.2 million visitors (up 31 percent) and Hallmark.com with 5 million visitors (up 20 percent).
• The flowers/gifts/greetings category saw a 22 percent gain to 35.6 million visitors, with PartyCity.com experiencing the largest growth of the category’s top sites with a 151 percent jump to 3.5 million visitors.

Retail Sites

Several retail-related categories, including malls, toys, retail food, consumer electronics and jewelry/luxury goods/accessories, posted significant gains in October as consumers geared up for the approaching holiday season:

• Mall sites rose 13 percent to 30.8 million visitors, with the five most-visited sites in the category all posting double-digit growth for the month.
• Amid news of continued toy recalls, traffic to toy sites rose 12 percent to 23.6 million visitors.
• The toys category was led by Toys”R”Us Sites with 8.7 million visitors (up 26 percent), with both KB Toys (up 105 percent to 1.8 million visitors) and Fisher Price (up 107 percent to 1.5 million visitors) posting triple-digit growth for the month.
• High demand for electronic items helped boost traffic to the consumer electronics category 8 percent to 50.1 million visitors.
• Notable retailers in the top 10 consumer electronics sites included BestBuy.com (up 4 percent to 15 million visitors), Circuit City (up 22 percent to 10.8 million visitors), eBay Electronics U.S. (up 77 percent to 8 million visitors), Wal-Mart Electronics (up 9 percent to 3.8 million visitors), and Sony Electronics (up 22 percent to 2 million visitors).

Online Trading Sites

Amid third quarter earnings announcements and heavy trading activity in the stock markets, online trading sites experienced a 21 percent increase to 12.4 million visitors.

Fidelity Investments led the category with 3.8 million visitors (12 percent), followed by Scottrade Sites with 1.6 million visitors (up 7 percent), ShareBuilder.com with 1.3 million visitors (up 21 percent), and ETrade Financial Network with nearly 1.3 million visitors (also up 21 percent).