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the hot web thing
Rising traffic puts search engine nearer to the top
By Jeremy Schlosberg
Once a best-kept secret among knowing web surfers, the search engine named after a whimsical mathematical term is on the brink of top-10 status.
Google, the plain but powerful search site founded by two Stanford Ph.D. students in 1998, was the No. 11 most-visited web property for the week ending May 27, according to new data from Nielsen//NetRatings.
Approaching the web’s top 10 caps a notable year for Google.
It began last May when one of the web’s pioneering search engines, AltaVista, saw fit to blatantly copy Google’s look and feel by introducing a new search service it called Raging Search. This appeared to be a clear signal that Google was on to something with its vast new capacities and stripped-down design.
Raging Search has since disappeared, quietly reabsorbed back into AltaVista. And AltaVista itself is quietly ailing. The same week that Google has hit No. 11, AltaVista has for the first time disappeared from the Nielsen//NetRatings top 25.
In June, Yahoo signed a deal that made Google the search engine powering all Yahoo searches, a position held previously by Inktomi. This fed into Google’s growing popularity. By September, it had cracked the Media Metrix list of top 50 web properties for the first time.
Google first showed up on Nielsen//NetRatings’ weekly list of top 25 properties during the week ending Dec. 10, when it appeared at No. 24, with some 2.5 million unique visitors.
Shortly after this, Google found itself showing up in conversation as a new verb. To "google" someone began to mean looking up a person on Google to find out about him or her; the press began to enjoy writing about the prevalence of young professionals "googling" each other before a first date. The word also started being used more generally to mean "to use a search engine on the internet."
By the week ending March 18, Google was up to No. 16 with almost 3.9 million visitors. Now, for the week ending May 27, Google attracted some 4.7 million unique visitors, according to Nielsen//NetRatings, bringing it within about 250,000 visitors of tenth-place eUniverse.
Google derived its name from the word "googol," a word coined in 1938 by mathematician Edward Kasner for the number portrayed by the number one followed by 100 zeroes. The story has it that Kasner had asked his eight-year-old nephew for a good name for that number, and "googol" was what he said.
In other chart news, music and video club Columbia House continues to dominate the banner chart in an unprecedented fashion, delivering six of the web’s 10 most-viewed banners for the second straight week after delivering seven of the top 10 banners two weeks before.
Columbia House has come a long way in a short time.
"We didn’t touch internet advertising until the fourth quarter of last year, and then we started dabbling a little bit," reports David Conn, vice president of marketing for Columbia House.
Full-fledged campaigns were rolled out in January and February. In recent weeks, as Nielsen//NetRatings documents, Columbia House banners have been all over the place. Conn says they now have hundreds of partners; sites featuring Columbia House ads include AOL, Yahoo, MSN, eUniverse, American Greetings and ClassMates.com.
"We’re seeing great results," asserts Conn, particularly with DVDs, he says.
"The DVD market is exploding. And our DVD club has been an unbelievably hot product line for us, and it has been a perfect fit for the online advertising marketplace. It’s just been a monster for us."
|
Top 25 Properties |
|||
|
Property |
Unique Audience |
Reach % |
Time |
| 1. AOL Time Warner |
37,812,191 |
50.27 |
0:15:38 |
| 2. Yahoo |
30,903,169 |
41.08 |
0:26:13 |
| 3. MSN |
27,571,264 |
36.66 |
0:22:56 |
| 4. Lycos Network |
9,271,098 |
12.33 |
0:09:21 |
| 5. Microsoft |
9,262,228 |
12.31 |
0:04:38 |
| 6. Excite@Home |
8,740,200 |
11.62 |
0:13:12 |
| 7. eBay |
6,866,382 |
9.13 |
0:42:35 |
| 8. Walt Disney Internet Group |
6,193,069 |
8.23 |
0:13:59 |
| 9. About |
6,065,206 |
8.06 |
0:06:54 |
| 10. eUniverse Network |
4,982,267 |
6.62 |
0:07:20 |
| 11. Google |
4,728,019 |
6.29 |
0:06:17 |
| 12. Amazon |
4,605,439 |
6.12 |
0:08:25 |
| 13. CNET Networks |
4,461,275 |
5.93 |
0:07:09 |
| 14. InfoSpace |
4,203,432 |
5.59 |
0:04:57 |
| 15. Napster |
4,073,034 |
5.41 |
0:05:32 |
| 16. NBC Internet |
3,740,793 |
4.97 |
0:07:39 |
| 17. ClassMates Online |
3,725,737 |
4.95 |
0:06:54 |
| 18. Ask Jeeves |
3,642,455 |
4.84 |
0:05:38 |
| 19. GoTo.com |
3,375,922 |
4.49 |
0:02:13 |
| 20. Vivendi Universal |
3,220,773 |
4.28 |
0:12:14 |
| 21. AT&T |
3,157,099 |
4.2 |
0:09:29 |
| 22. iWon |
3,108,926 |
4.13 |
0:26:43 |
| 23. Weather Channel |
3,028,195 |
4.03 |
0:05:34 |
| 24. EarthLink |
2,994,957 |
3.98 |
0:06:52 |
| 25. Gator.com |
2,676,510 |
3.56 |
0:06:50 |
| Source:
Nielsen//NetRatings
|
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|
Top Ten Advertisers |
|||
|
Advertiser |
Impressions |
Unique Audience |
Reach % |
| 1. Microsoft |
469,453,738 |
25,461,964 |
33.85 |
| 2. ClassMates |
296,499,070 |
23,448,653 |
31.17 |
| 3. Amazon |
225,329,143 |
27,463,392 |
36.51 |
| 4. Columbia House |
185,035,235 |
14,586,296 |
19.39 |
| 5. Yahoo! |
166,713,368 |
17,382,768 |
23.11 |
| 6. Barnes and Noble |
138,842,673 |
18,015,429 |
23.95 |
| 7. Netscape |
109,542,955 |
12,534,925 |
16.66 |
| 8. America Online |
91,579,850 |
13,493,614 |
17.94 |
| 9. TheBabyOutlet.com |
83,210,360 |
1,479,862 |
1.97 |
| 10. eBay |
83,158,343 |
10,523,240 |
13.99 |
| Source:
Nielsen//NetRatings
|
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Top 25 Domains |
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|
Domain |
Unique Audience |
Reach % |
Time |
| 1. yahoo.com |
28,493,681 |
37.88 |
0:27:03 |
| 2. aol.com |
26,380,320 |
35.07 |
0:14:07 |
| 3. msn.com |
25,301,659 |
33.64 |
0:20:18 |
| 4. passport.com |
13,577,682 |
18.05 |
0:03:14 |
| 5. microsoft.com |
8,747,120 |
11.63 |
0:04:26 |
| 6. geocities.com |
7,250,302 |
9.64 |
0:04:49 |
| 7. netscape.com |
6,542,932 |
8.70 |
0:09:06 |
| 8. ebay.com |
6,345,068 |
8.44 |
0:43:56 |
| 9. go.com |
6,016,384 |
8.00 |
0:14:12 |
| 10. excite.com |
5,242,165 |
6.97 |
0:16:43 |
| 11. google.com |
4,721,814 |
6.28 |
0:06:17 |
| 12. amazon.com |
4,209,782 |
5.60 |
0:07:50 |
| 13. lycos.com |
4,119,343 |
5.48 |
0:12:39 |
| 14. napster.com |
4,071,278 |
5.41 |
0:05:32 |
| 15. classmates.com |
3,725,737 |
4.95 |
0:06:54 |
| 16. goto.com |
3,368,848 |
4.48 |
0:02:14 |
| 17. iwon.com |
3,108,926 |
4.13 |
0:26:43 |
| 18. weather.com |
3,028,195 |
4.03 |
0:05:34 |
| 19. nbci.com |
2,949,931 |
3.92 |
0:05:57 |
| 20. about.com |
2,845,959 |
3.78 |
0:04:34 |
| 21. compuserve.com |
2,836,622 |
3.77 |
0:16:55 |
| 22. angelfire.com |
2,692,073 |
3.58 |
0:03:32 |
| 23. gator.com |
2,659,586 |
3.54 |
0:06:23 |
| 24. tripod.com |
2,649,179 |
3.52 |
0:03:25 |
| 25. earthlink.net |
2,639,680 |
3.51 |
0:07:05 |
| Source:
Nielsen//NetRatings
|
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|
Top 25 Advertising Domains |
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|
Domain |
Impressions |
Reach_% |
| 1. yahoo.com |
1,105,000,000 |
32.29 |
| 2. msn.com |
901,708,126 |
29.93 |
| 3. ebay.com |
440,350,764 |
8.08 |
| 4. aol.com |
409,612,354 |
20.65 |
| 5. excite.com |
146,250,363 |
5.94 |
| 6. netscape.com |
138,004,412 |
7.45 |
| 7. iwon.com |
114,695,357 |
3.55 |
| 8. lycos.com |
110,867,916 |
3.80 |
| 9. go.com |
90,723,765 |
5.37 |
| 10. audiogalaxy.com |
57,205,894 |
0.74 |
| 11. compuserve.com |
56,102,535 |
2.95 |
| 12. monster.com |
53,214,754 |
1.75 |
| 13. passport.com |
51,186,112 |
12.1 |
| 14. juno.com |
50,763,507 |
1.69 |
| 15. mapquest.com |
50,198,445 |
2.32 |
| 16. ezboard.com |
41,154,674 |
0.85 |
| 17. neopets.com |
40,255,877 |
0.50 |
| 18. cnn.com |
40,080,938 |
2.36 |
| 19. pogo.com |
36,638,605 |
1.57 |
| 20. att.net |
36,402,317 |
2.13 |
| 21. earthlink.net |
34,904,350 |
2.82 |
| 22. infospace.com |
32,469,918 |
1.93 |
| 23. looksmart.com |
26,570,284 |
2.21 |
| 24. realtor.com |
26,471,464 |
1.08 |
|
25. ancestry.com |
23,733,062 |
0.73 |
| Source:
Nielsen//NetRatings
|
||
|
Top Ten Banners |
|||
|
Advertiser |
Impressions |
Unique Audience |
Reach % |
| 1. ClassMates |
156,885,231 |
9,013,250 |
11.98 |
| 2. Bonzi Software |
34,484,042 |
8,977,993 |
11.94 |
| 3. Colonize |
23,790,039 |
5,886,126 |
7.83 |
| 4. Columbia House |
19,831,605 |
5,373,080 |
7.14 |
| 5. Columbia House |
20,446,357 |
5,354,583 |
7.12 |
| 6. Columbia House |
19,641,756 |
5,340,289 |
7.1 |
| 7. Columbia House |
19,350,256 |
5,329,135 |
7.08 |
| 8. Columbia House |
19,380,805 |
5,322,044 |
7.08 |
| 9. Columbia House |
19,388,120 |
5,198,169 |
6.91 |
| 10. eDiets |
20,663,251 |
5,162,296 |
6.86 |
|
Source: Nielsen//NetRatings |
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|
Average Usage |
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|
|
Current Week |
Last Week |
% Chg |
|
Number of Sessions per Week |
6 |
6 |
0 |
|
Number of Unique Sites Visited |
6 |
6 |
0 |
|
Page Views per Week |
214 |
210 |
1.9 |
|
Page Views per Surfing Session |
35 |
34 |
2.94 |
|
Time Spent per Week |
3:03:13 |
3:03:48 |
-0.31 |
|
Time Spent During Surfing Session |
0:30:21 |
0:30:10 |
0.61 |
|
Duration a Page Viewed |
0:00:52 |
0:00:53 |
-2.27 |
|
Average Click Rate for Top Banners |
0.26 |
0.27 |
-3.7 |
|
Active Internet Universe |
75,216,447 |
74,999,533 |
0.29 |
|
Current Internet Universe Estimate |
167,565,249 |
167,485,517 |
0.05 |
| Source:
Nielsen//NetRatings
|
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June 1, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-Jeremy Schlosberg is the senior editor for new media. Staff writer Marty Beard contributed to the reporting of this story.
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