Tax Sites Gain Popularity, Google Ad Network Reaches 93% of Online Americans in January
As tax season approaches, tax sites drew nearly five times as many visitors in January than they did in December, according to comScore.
The company reports that Business/Finance – Taxes sites drew 30.7 million U.S. visitors in January, up 359 percent from the 6.7 million visitors the category drew in December.
Retail – Computer Software was the second top gaining site category in January, as it drew 54.1 million visitors, up 30 percent from the 41.6 million visitors it drew in the previous month.
Travel – Transactions (+28 percent), Career Services & Development – Job Search (+27 percent), Career Services & Development – Training and Education (+23 percent), Travel – Car Rental (+22 percent), Travel – Hotels/Resorts (+18 percent), Career Services & Development – Career Resources (+18 percent), Entertainment – News (+16 percent), and Travel — Ground/Cruise (+16 percent) rounded out the list of the top 10 gaining site categories in the first month of 2012.
IRS.gov was the top gaining Web property in January, drawing 16.3 million visitors, up 222 percent from the 5.0 million visitors it drew in December.
ED.gov was second with a 76 percent increase in the number of its unique visitors, while Pinterest.com was third with a 56 percent month-over-month increase.
Travelocity (+43 percent), Kayak.com Network (+38 percent), ChaCha.com (+34 percent), Orbitz Worldwide (+32 percent), Info.com (+32 percent), Dominion Enterprises (+31 percent), and Indeed (+31 percent) rounded out the list of the top 10 gaining properties by percentage change in unique visitors in January.
Google Sites was the top online property in the U.S. in January with 187.4 million unique visitors, followed by Microsoft Sites with 179.2 million visitors and Yahoo! Sites with 177.2 million visitors.
Facebook.com was fourth with 163.5 million visitors, followed by Amazon Sites with 110.0 million visitors, AOL Inc. with 107.1 million visitors, Ask Network with 94.0 million visitors, Glam Media with 90.9 million visitors and Wikimedia Foundation Sites with 88.5 million visitors.
comScore notes that LinkedIn jumped up eight spots to rank No. 29 with 36.8 million visitors in January, while Everyday Health jumped up 10 spots to finish at No. 38 with 30.2 million visitors.
Google Ad Network topped comScore’s Ad Focus Ranking with a reach of 92.9 percent of online Americans in January, followed by AOL Advertising with a reach of 85.0 percent and Yahoo! Network Plus with 84.8 percent.
“In January, the average U.S. Internet user spent a record 36 hours online, reflecting the growing importance of digital media to Americans’ daily lives,” said Jeff Hackett, executive vice president of comScore.
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