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Top 50 U.S. Web Rankings for June, Travel and Leisure Gain

Just barely, Google clung to its lead as the top U.S. web property after having wrested away the honor from Yahoo three months ago, according to a comScore Media Metrix monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at online properties, MarketingCharts writes.

Content categories showing traffic gains in June were heavily leisure-oriented, including online gaming, travel, entertainment (movies and lotto/sweepstakes), but gains were modest in a month in which the total number of internet users decreased slightly and time spent online per user declined 4 percent.

Below, the findings issued by comScore.

Top 50 Properties (Unique Visitors)

Google Sites maintained the top position in the Top Properties ranking, reaching 140.2 million Americans in June and narrowly edging out Yahoo Sites’ 140.1 million. (See table of top 50.)
Among other highlights:

• Microsoft Sites ranked third with 119.7 million visitors.
• Apple Inc. moved up two positions to #10 with help from the iPhone 3G, which was announced in June.
• Disney Online and Adobe Sites each gained four spots to numbers 21 and 22, respectively.

Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking (Advertising Reach)

(View table.) Platform-A led the Ad Focus ranking in June, reaching 90 percent of the nearly 190 million Americans online, followed by Yahoo Network (83 percent reach), Google Ad Network (81 percent reach), and Specific Media (78 percent reach).

Top-Gaining Sites and Categories

See table of June’s top 10 gaining categories and top 10 sites, by percentage change in unique visitors.

Summer Travel Season

The online car rental category was the top-gaining one in June, growing 4 percent to 6.5 million visitors:

• Enterprise Rent-A-Car Company led the category with 3.4 million visitors, followed by Avis Budget Group with 2.6 million visitors.
• Significant gainers in the category included Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group Inc. (up 39 percent to 1.1 million visitors), CarRentals.com (up 42 percent to 892,000 visitors), and Advantage.com (up 39 percent to 214,000 visitors).

The travel - ground/cruise category ranked as the third fastest-growing category in June, growing 3 percent to 11.5 million visitors: Amtrak led the category with 2.7 million visitors (up 11 percent), followed by VacationsToGo.com with 2.2 million visitors (up 14 percent), and Greyhound Lines with 1.6 million visitors (up 26 percent).

The gains in ground travel lines like Amtrak and Greyhound may reflect Americans’ attempts to save on summer travel by avoiding the increasing costs of air travel and long car trips due to rising gas prices, comScore said.

Summer Blockbusters Drive Traffic to Movie Sites

Several summer blockbusters reached theaters in June, driving a 2 percent gain to the entertainment - movies category:

• IMDB.com (Internet Movie Data Base) led the category with 20.8 million visitors, followed by Moviefone (15.6 million visitors) and Yahoo Movies (15.2 million visitors).
• Interest in Disney’s summer blockbuster Wall-E drove a 24 percent gain to Disney Movies (4.7 million visitors), while the release of Kung Fu Panda resulted in a 182 percent gain to DreamWorks SKG (1.4 million visitors).

More Gaming Online When School’s Out

Online gaming typically increases during the summer months with kids out of school, and the category was among the 10 fastest-gaining this month with more than 94 million visitors.

The category was led by Yahoo Games with 17 million visitors, followed by EA Online (13.8 million visitors) and Disney Games (12.8 million).