Compete Releases Ranking of Top 50 Web Sites for March 2010

Boston MA, –  (April 27, 2010) -- Compete, a Kantar Media company, today released its ranking of the top 50 Web sites for March 2010. This month’s rankings revealed harbingers of spring – interest in home improvement and baseball – and fading recession fears, evidenced by spikes in traffic to Compete’s “Theme Parks” and “Vacation Packagers” categories.
Kids, This Year We’re Taking That Vacation

With the departure of winter, the freeze on consumers’ budgets for travel and recreation also showed signs of a possible thaw. Two categories, “Theme Parks” and “Vacation Packagers,” showed strong month-over-month growth. Sixflags.com led the sites in Compete’s “Theme Parks” category with a total of 845,000 unique visitors (UVs), an 89.5 percent increase over February 2010. Seaworld.com (427,000 UVs), disneyvacations.com (344,398 UVs) and buschgardens.com (282.895 UVS) all experienced month-over-month gains and contributed to the category’s total 4,029,013 UVs for the month of March. Compete’s “Vacation Packagers” category was also among the month’s top movers with a total of 6,788,309 UVs, a 30 percent increase in traffic from February 2010. Top sites in this category include voyageprive.com (1,408,864 UVs), southwestvacations.com (743,581 UVs) and cheapcaribbean.com (681,440 UVs).
Spring Cleaning

Every spring we expect to see a spike in home improvement-related traffic online. March didn’t disappoint. Bedbathandbeyond.com (5,058,487 UVs), lowes.com (10,342,666 UVs) and homedepot.com (12,792,326 UVs) were all among the month’s top moving sites, with month-over-month increases of 19 percent, 14.5 percent and 11 percent, respectively. Not surprisingly, budget constraints remained a pivotal concern as consumers shopped for everyday purchases like groceries, clothing and personal care. Discount blogs dealseekingmom.com (285,750 UVs), pinchingyourpennies.com (88,226 UVs) and mrcheapstuff.com (77,160 UVs) were all among the leading sites in Compete’s “Shopping Blogs” category, which saw a total of 3,015,932 UVs for the month of March.
Play Ball!

Baseball fans hit a line drive straight to the Web in March to search for team rosters and the latest news on their favorite players in advance of Opening Day. Compete’s “Baseball” category was among the month’s top movers with 7,513,832 UVs, a 43.7 percent increase over February 2010. Mlb.com led this category with a total of 6,786.134 UVs, earning the site the number three spot on Compete’s list of the month’s top moving sites.

The greatest rivalry in baseball, Boston Red Sox vs. New York Yankees, showed no signs of cooling off in March. The Sox’s online home, boston.redsox.mlb.com, was the highest trafficked MLB team site for the month with a total of 638,257 UVs, closely followed by newyork.yankees.mlb.com with 626,636 UVs. Midwestern baseball fans were responsible for the most dramatic traffic increase at the MLB.com subdomain level, however. As the Minnesota Twins prepared to open the season in their new stadium, traffic to minnesota.twins.mlb.com soared to 348,975 UVs—representing a 73.9 percent month-over-month increase and a 70.78 percent uptick from March 2009. Chicago.cubs.mlb.com (494,882 UVs), philadelphia.phillies.mlb.com (387,972 UVs) and losangeles.dodgers.mlb.com (356,701 UVs) all also experienced strong month-over-month gains.

Information regarding aggregate Web categories is drawn from the Compete PRO Enterprise edition on Compete.com. For more information on the enterprise offering, please contact gblackmore@compete.com.

About Compete
Compete, a Kantar Media company, 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 www.competeinc.com/, or to join the conversation visit www.compete.com/.

About Kantar
Kantar is one of the world's largest insight, information and consultancy networks. By uniting the diverse talents of its 13 specialist companies, the group aims to become the pre-eminent provider of compelling and inspirational insights for the global business community. Its 26,500 employees work across 95 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. For further information, please visit us at www.kantar.com.