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driver of web traffic
X10 effect: Ads push some sites up the top 50 list
By Marty Beard
Anyone doubting the dramatic increase in ambush-style pop-up ads on the web need only turn for evidence to the latest traffic data for the leading web sites.
A handful of sites are rising up on the top 50, thanks to pop-ups, so-called because they pop open on the user's screen. Because the ads open new browser windows, each user encounter counts as a visit to the site.
The greatest beneficiary by far is X10, maker of the "tiny wireless camera," which pioneered the pop-under ad that slips behind other windows on a user's screen.
X10 received 34.2 million unique visitors in June, according to Media Metrix, which put it at No. 4 on the list of the top-50 most-visited sites, up one position from May.
That put it ahead of such longstanding web leaders as Terra Lycos at No. 5, Excite at No. 6, and About.com at No. 7.
X10 has been shooting up the charts for several months now. It debuted at No. 32 in March and hit No. 14 in April. Then the campaign’s intensity appeared to step up, and traffic to X10.com exploded 141.4 percent, to put it at No. 5 in May.
The X10 ads launch from sites such as NYTimes.com, MSN.com, Weather.com and Yahoo.com, and off the Fastclick.net ad-serving network.
But even while pop-ups are not visits to a site in the conventional sense, Jupiter Media Metrix has no plans to stop counting traffic generated by them.
"Media Metrix reports all content with which users interact," the research company’s president, Doug McFarland, says in a statement. "This includes pop-up and pop-under web pages, which spawn new browsers.
"As an objective, third-party measurement company, Media Metrix has a responsibility to include and report interaction with all legitimate web pages without bias toward content, business purpose, or method of acquiring viewers."
Also benefiting from pop-up traffic is eBay, the online auctioneer.
EBay’s web sites jumped from No. 12 to No. 8, mainly because of a pop-up campaign by its Half.com online secondhand store, launched from MyPoints.com and the web site of The New York Times.
The Half.com campaign led to a 66 percent increase in unique visitors. Overall, eBay experienced a 21 percent increase in unique visitors, going to 23.3 million people from 19.2 million in May.
Real.com and Colonize also reaped the apparent traffic benefits of pop-ups in June. Traffic to Real.com rose 17 percent, from 12.1 million unique visitors in May 2001 to 14.2 million unique visitors in June. The pop-ups were directly responsible for about a million of its total unique visitors.
Colonize.com, which deploys ads that mimic Microsoft Windows warnings, saw a 19 percent rise in unique visitors over May.
The 10 million unique visitors it received put it at No. 27 for June, up from No. 33 in May, when it received 8.3 million unique visitors. Colonize’s ads were launched mainly out of Yahoo.
Meanwhile, Bonzi.com, the California-based software company that originated the mock-Windows banners and pop-ups, is back in the Media Metrix top 50 at No. 48, after a prolonged absence. It had not appeared in the top 50 since February, when it held the No. 22 slot.
One online property that has seen a steady decline in traffic is that of music-file-swapping service Napster.
The service has been unavailable for more than two weeks as it furthered tightened its filters to block the trading of copyrighted under court order. It is preparing to relaunch as a fee-based service later this summer.
In June, 10.5 million visitors hit Napster, which put the site at No. 25, down two spots from May, when 10.9 million people dropped by the site. Curiously enough, more people were actually using the Napster software in June: 8.9 million, versus 8.5 million in May, an increase of 3 percent.
Jupiter Media Metrix also notes that summertime internet use patterns have set in. People are doing more surfing at home than they are at work.
Between May and June, time spent online at home increased 4.1 percent, from 73.5 billion minutes spent online in May to 76.5 billion minutes in June.
Time spent online at work in June dropped 3.7 percent, to 28.3 billion total minutes, from 29.3 billion minutes in May.
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TOP 50 WEB
PROPERTIES |
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|
Property |
June Visitors (000) |
May Visitors (000) |
April Visitors (000) |
March Visitors (000) |
% Change over Prev. 3 Months’ Average |
|
1. AOL Time Warner Network |
72,477 |
70,701 |
69,333 |
69,453 |
+3.8 |
|
2. Microsoft Sites |
61,512 |
61,350 |
60,707 |
61,371 |
+0.6 |
|
3. Yahoo |
59,907 |
57,559 |
58,464 |
58,820 |
+2.8 |
|
4. X10.com (5) |
34,188 |
28,603 |
15,292 |
8,406 |
+96.1 |
|
5. Terra Lycos (4) |
33,277 |
32853 |
31,276 |
33,100 |
+2.7 |
|
6. Excite Network |
26,589 |
28,186 |
28,749 |
27,635 |
-5.7 |
|
7. About |
25,949 |
25,667 |
25220 |
27,679 |
-0.9 |
|
8. eBay (12) |
23,263 |
19,236 |
18,447 |
19,840 |
+21.3 |
|
9. InfoSpace (8) |
21,101 |
20,236 |
19,492 |
20,817 |
+4.1 |
|
10. Amazon (8) |
19,972 |
20,016 |
19,163 |
19,249 |
+2.5 |
|
11. Walt Disney Internet Group (10) |
19,308 |
19,876 |
20,899 |
23,416 |
-9.8 |
|
12. CNET Networks (13) |
19,006 |
18,581 |
17,661 |
18,570 |
+4.0 |
|
13. Vivendi Universal Sites |
15,581 |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
|
14. Viacom Online (17) |
14,308 |
12,839 |
12,476 |
14,834 |
+6.9 |
|
15. Real.com Network (20) |
14,229 |
12,124 |
12,659 |
13,656 |
+11.05 |
|
16. AltaVista Network (14) |
14,098 |
15,145 |
16,226 |
18,258 |
-14.8 |
|
17. AskJeeves (15) |
13,931 |
13,899 |
13,753 |
14,054 |
+0.2 |
|
18. NBC Internet Sites (11) |
13,644 |
19,363 |
21,984 |
22,077 |
-35.5 |
|
19. Google Sites (18) |
13,567 |
12,579 |
11,564 |
10,918 |
+16.1 |
|
20. eUniverse Network (16) |
13,560 |
13,835 |
13,202 |
14,379 |
-1.8 |
|
21. The Weather Channel (24) |
11,351 |
10,585 |
9,744 |
12,129 |
+4.9 |
|
22. AT&T Web Sites |
10,841 |
11,151 |
10,650 |
10,201 |
+1.6 |
|
23. Ticketmaster Sites |
10,838 |
11,156 |
10,694 |
9,460 |
+3.8 |
|
24. Gator Network (26) |
10,754 |
10,269 |
9,969 |
8,904 |
+10.7 |
|
25. Napster Digital (23) |
10,450 |
10,909 |
12,248 |
15,717 |
-19.4 |
|
26. iWon (27) |
10,056 |
10,157 |
10,314 |
8,589 |
+3.8 |
|
27. Colonize.com (33) |
9,938 |
8.336 |
7,708 |
-- |
+23.9** |
|
28. GoTo (25) |
9,758 |
10,539 |
11,208 |
11,118 |
-10.9 |
|
29. ClassMates.com Sites (30) |
9,241 |
9,150 |
9,129 |
8,038 |
+5.3 |
|
30. iVillage.com (36) |
9,082 |
7,603 |
8,265 |
9,184 |
+8.8 |
|
31. EarthLink (29) |
9,007 |
9,524 |
9,645 |
10,092 |
-1.5 |
|
32. LookSmart (28) |
8,595 |
9,711 |
10,151 |
11,451 |
-1.8 |
|
33. SBC Communications Sites (32) |
8,488 |
8,352 |
7,850 |
7,331 |
+8.2 |
|
34. American Greetings (31) |
8,439 |
8,862 |
11,484 |
7,522 |
-9.2 |
|
35. MyPoints Sites (40) |
8,203 |
7,307 |
6,616 |
7,162 |
+16.7 |
|
36. Homestead.com (35) |
7,868 |
8,084 |
7,485 |
8,161 |
-0.5 |
|
37. Travelocity (38) |
7,841 |
7,443 |
7,460 |
7,096 |
+6.9 |
|
38. FortuneCity Network (34) |
7,774 |
8,188 |
7,994 |
9,078 |
-7.7 |
|
39. NextCard.com |
7,755 |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
|
40. BizRate.com (48) |
7,279 |
6,176 |
-- |
7,012 |
+10.4** |
|
41.Juno Online Services (39) |
7,277 |
7,426 |
7,134 |
7,481 |
-1.0 |
|
42. Homestore.com Network (37) |
7,217 |
7,563 |
7,250 |
7,184 |
-1.6 |
|
43. Harris Interactive |
7,126 |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
|
44. Gannett Sites (43) |
7,061 |
6,931 |
7,315 |
7,707 |
-3.5 |
|
45. AmericanExpress.com (46) |
7,010 |
6,474 |
6,572 |
-- |
+7.5** |
|
46. Women.com Networks |
6,919 |
6,938 |
7,044 |
8,529 |
-7.8 |
|
47. UGO Networks (44) |
6,561 |
6,838 |
-- |
-- |
-3.9* |
|
48. Bonzi.com |
6,559 |
-- |
-- |
-- |
-- |
|
49. Monster.com (41) |
6,512 |
7,069 |
-- |
-- |
-7.9* |
|
50. Focalex.com (48) |
6.419 |
6,350 |
8,300 |
8,112 |
-15.4 |
| Underline
indicates a site not in the Top 50 in May *Site’s percentage increase calculated against the previous month only. **Site’s percentage increase calculated against two previous months only. Source: Jupiter Media Metrix |
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July 17, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-Marty Beard is a staff writer for Media Life.
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