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Compete Ranks Top 50 Web Sites for August 2009
Football Fans, Back to School Shoppers and News Seekers Flock to the Web
BOSTON –
(September 10, 2009) –
Compete, a TNS Media company, today released a snapshot from the
Compete 250, its monthly ranking of the top 250 trafficked Web
sites. In August 2009, football fans and fantasy football
players hit the Web to gear up for the season; families went back to
school shopping online and news organizations made headline-worthy
traffic jumps.
Are you ready for some
football?
With NFL teams kicking off pre-season games, August saw an increase in
activity on the field and online. NFL.com ranked among the
month’s biggest gainers, growing 123 percent month-over-month
to reach 6.5 million unique visitors (UVs). The top three
most visited NFL team sites, DallasCowboys.com, Steelers.com and
PhiladelphiaEagles.com also drove traffic, contributing to the Football
category’s 14.5 percent UV increase over August
2008. The Fantasy Football category mirrored the
NFL’s growth by attracting 43.8 percent more traffic than in
July 2009. The top Fantasy Football sites include
streak.espn.go.com, fantasysports.yahoo.com and
games.espn.go.com. For more on the fantasy sports phenomenon,
click
here.
Shop ‘til you
drop
Mass Merchants and Department Store sites continued to see traffic gains from back to school shoppers. The category attracted 112.7 million UVs in August 2009, an increase of 7.3 percent over the previous year. Sears.com, JCPenney.com, Kohls.com and Zappos.com all earned spots among the fastest growing sites in August. In 2008, the number of visitors to mass merchant sites increased 16.6 percent from August to December. If the same percentage growth occurs in 2009, the stores can expect more than 131 million site visitors during the year’s final holiday push. For more on how summer shopping translates to December buying in the consumer electronics market, click here.
Newsworthy growth
Media sites gained substantial
traction in August 2009, accounting for eight of the top 30
traffic-gaining Web sites. For example, BusinessWeek.com saw a 21.5
percent up-tick, NPR.org increased UVs by 18.3 percent and
TheStreet.com grew 18 percent over July 2009. As a whole, the
Business News category has grown 45.5 percent year over year, reaching
64.1 million UVs in August 2009. Business Magazines also made
traction as a category, reaching 20.5 million sets of eyeballs in
August 2009, a 7.9 percent increase over July of this year.
“This
month’s Compete 250 snapshot shows just how engrained the Web
has become in our daily lives,” said Cynthia Stephens,
director of Marketing for Compete. “We turn to the
web whether we are shopping, being entertained or getting
up-to-the-minute news. As marketers we can use web traffic
information to cash in on seasonal trends and refine campaigns to stay
top of mind with consumers.”
The Compete 250 is a category made up of the top 250 trafficked sites
across the Web, providing an index to understand what is happening with
the top online sites on a regular basis. Marketers
use the Compete 250 to see where people are spending their time online,
which sites are moving up or down in the ranks and how traffic and
engagement changes over time. The Compete 250 is available to Compete
PRO subscribers at www.compete.com.
About Compete
Compete, a unit of TNS Media, helps the world’s top brands improve their marketing based on the online behavior of millions of consumers. Leading marketers such as Carlson Hotels Worldwide, Hyundai Motor America, Upromise, Chrysler, and Verizon Wireless rely on Compete's services to create effective online experiences and highly profitable advertising campaigns. Compete’s online behavior database—the largest in the industry—makes the web as ingrained in marketing as it is in people’s lives.
Compete was founded in 2000 and
is located in Boston, MA, with offices
throughout the U.S. For more information about us, please
visit http://www.competeinc.com/,
or to join the conversation visit
http://www.compete.com/.
About TNS media
Established in more than 30
countries, TNS Media explores
all the media—print, radio, TV, Internet, social media,
cinema and outdoors worldwide, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and
offers a full range of insights, analyses and audience measurement
services.
TNS Media combines the deepest expertise in the industry to provide
media and marketing intelligence including advertising expenditure
monitoring, advertising creation monitoring, audience measurement,
market influence analytics, online consumer behavior tracking, news
monitoring, sports sponsorship evaluation and more. The TNS
Media companies track more than 3 million brands and provide vital
market intelligence to 16,000 customers in the world. http://www.tnsmediagroup.com
About
Kantar Group
The Kantar Group is one of
the world's largest research,
insight and consultancy networks. By uniting the diverse talents of
more than 20 specialist companies – including the
recently-acquired TNS – the group aims to become the
pre-eminent provider of compelling and actionable insights for the
global business community. Its 26,500 employees work across 80
countries and across the whole spectrum of research and consultancy
disciplines, enabling the group to offer clients business insights at
each and every point of the consumer cycle. The group’s
services are employed by over half of the Fortune Top 500
companies. The Kantar Group is a wholly-owned subsidiary of
WPP Group plc. For further information, please visit http://www.kantargroup.com