Top 10 sites, advertisers and banners

by Jeremy Schlosberg

      AOL tops the list of most popular internet properties for the week ending May 16, according to the newest numbers from Nielsen//NetRatings. Forty percent of the U.S. online audience visited AOL at some point during the week. Number two Yahoo! had a 29.7 reach, with MSN a notch back at 26.5. But none of the top 10 sites can touch Yahoo! for "stickiness," the numbers show: web surfers get off their boards for at least twice as long there as nearly every other top-ten site except MSN. Microsoft giant continues to top the list of advertisers in both impressions (168.6 million) and reach (39.6). Number two Amazon is way back in impressions (60 million) but reaching, rather efficiently, 27 percent of the overall audience in the process. Number three eBay is employing a narrower focus, with 38.8 million impressions to reach 6.6 percent of the audience.
          Here are the numbers for the week of May 10-16, 1999.

TOP 10 WEB SITES BY PROPERTY

Property Reach % Avg. Time Per Person in minutes

AOL Websites	40.
Yahoo!	29.7
MSN	26.5
Lycos Network	17.5
Excite Network	13.4
GO Network	13.4
GeoCities	10.7
Microsoft	8.3
AltaVista	7.3
Time Warner	7.1

A property is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs owned by a single entity. Reach refers to the percentage of total home internet users visiting a given property. Average time is the average time each person spends visiting that property.

TOP TEN ADVERTISERS

Advertiser	Impressions in millions	Reach %
Microsoft	168.6	39.6
Amazon	60.0	27.0
eBay	38.8	6.6
Thunderstone	36.2	4.1
LinkExchange	31.1	7.0
Ad Council	30.2	8.0
CDNow	25.3	12.2
Bonzi Software	22.7	14.3
Lowestfare	22.2	12.2
SexSwap	21.5	2.5

An impression is counted each time an ad banner is fully loaded onto a user's screen. So, for example, an estimated 25.3 million CDNow banners were completely loaded onto users' computers during last week. These banners were delivered to 12.2% of home internet users.

TOP TEN AD BANNERS VIEWED

Advertiser*	Reach%	Creative
Amazon	7.9	Click on Shopping. Then click on Music and Video.
Bonzi Software	7.2	Speed Up Your Internet Connection (the large blue-gray one)
Lowestfare	5.	Discount Travel Quick Search
Lowestfare	4.6	Save On A Major Airline 30%
Ad Council	4.4	Expect The Best From A Girl And That's What You'll GET
Bonzi Software	3.5	Speed Up Your Internet Connection (the small green-gray one)
Beyond.com	3.4	STARWARS Sweepstakes
LinkExchange	3.2	Have a Web Page? Wanna Promote It For FREE
Tower Records	3.2	Top 1000 always on sale
Ad Council	3.1	ESGR Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve

*Ad banners that run predominantly on an advertiser's own property are not included in the above.

AVERAGE INTERNET USAGE

Average Number of Sessions per Week	6
Average Number of Unique Sites Visited	6
Average Page Views per Week	112
Average Page Views per Surfing Session	20
Average Time Spent per Site	0:23:28
Average Time Spent per Week	2:39:42
Average Time Spent per Session	0:26:37
Average Time Viewing a Page	0:01:20
Average Click Rate for Top Banners*	0.44
Active Internet Universe (actually surfed)	43,833,766
Total Internet Universe Estimate	100,613,541

(*Top banner is defined as any individual banner viewed by at least 40 people.)

All of the above information is based on audience measurement of people ages 2 and older who have access to the internet from home. Internet use and advertising information from Nielsen//NetRatings is based on data from a research panel of more than 15,000 people who provide information as they surf the Web.

© Copyright 1999, NetRatings, Inc.