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than you think
Beginnings of a traffic surge to tax prep web sites
By Marty Beard
Life is a series of digressions into duty, and just how much the internet reflects life can be viewed each week in the changing pattern of what sites Americans visit.
The emerging duty of the moment is tax-paying, and we see this looking at internet traffic for the week ending Feb. 17.
Valentine's Day was hot that week, of course, especially among those looking for last-minute gifts or cards, and the Olympic sites were seeing record traffic, for sure.
But rising right up were sites catering to the needs of taxpayers getting ready for April 15.
Intuit.com, the web site of the company that makes the popular tax-preparation software TurboTax, came in as the No. 25 property for the week ending Feb. 17, according to Nielsen//NetRatings data. The site attracted 2.9 million unique visitors during the week, and those visitors each spent an average of 35 minutes onsite.
AOL's Personal Finance channel was its second-most-popular section for the week, according to Jupiter Media Metrix. Nearly 4.5 million people visited the section. It was also the second-most-popular finance site overall after Yahoo Finance, which received 4.7 million unique visitors.
Among Valentine's Day visitors, greeting card sites proved popular, even though some of the leaders in the category have begun charging for their services.
In fact, 150,000 new subscribers subscribed to AmericanGreetings.com during Valentine’s Day week, according to Jupiter Media Metrix.
But internet users still expect that at least some content and services will be free of charge. That spirit made Yahoo’s electronic card site, Yahoo Greetings, the second most popular. Its traffic jumped to 1.3 million average daily unique visitors, a 346 percent increase over the average of the previous three weeks.
American Greetings, which includes BlueMountain.com, eGreetings.com and AmericanGreetings.com within its network, experienced an 89 percent increase in traffic for the week when compared to the average of the previous three weeks.
The traffic surge came despite the fact that the company now charges $11.95 a year for the privilege of browsing through and sending its selections, which, like paper greeting cards, run the gamut from heartfelt to clever to just plain sappy or annoying.
In particular, BlueMountainArts.com, one of the oldest and best-known e-greeting brands, saw its traffic increase 141 percent, to 801,000 average daily unique visitors.
Egreetings experienced a 112 percent increase in traffic, to 350,000 visitors a day on average, and AmericanGreetings.com itself was up 58 percent, to 585,000.
Another American Greetings channel, BeatGreets.com, which features a selection of musical greetings from best-selling performers, experienced a 95 percent increase in traffic, to 137,000 visitors.
Online sports also continued to be popular: Olympics-related traffic rose, with NBCOlympics.com posting a steep 401 percent gain in the number of daily unique visitors, an average of 758,000 a day. Olympics.com traffic jumped 334 percent, to 302,000 visitors.
The skating events, including the controversy over the pair-skating gold medal and interest in women’s solos, fueled much of the interest, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.
"The increase in traffic following ‘Skategate’ shows that the web is much like a cyber-watercooler where folks can go to read the latest Olympics news," says Jarvis Mak, senior internet analyst at NetRatings.
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Top 25 Properties |
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| Property |
Unique |
Reach % |
Time Spent |
| 1. AOL Time Warner |
39,646 |
50.0 |
0:16:15 |
| 2. Yahoo |
35,398 |
44.7 |
0:31:47 |
| 3. MSN |
31,785 |
40.1 |
0:27:54 |
| 4. Microsoft |
14,332 |
18.1 |
0:07:22 |
| 5. Google |
9,258 |
11.7 |
0:07:35 |
| 6. Lycos Network |
8,882 |
11.2 |
0:08:29 |
| 7. eBay |
8,698 |
11.0 |
0:57:08 |
| 8. About-Primedia |
8,459 |
10.7 |
0:08:33 |
| 9. Amazon |
7,827 |
9.9 |
0:08:01 |
| 10. Walt Disney Internet Group |
6,493 |
8.2 |
0:15:35 |
| 11. American Greetings |
6,089 |
7.7 |
0:08:46 |
| 12. eUniverse Network |
5,208 |
6.6 |
0:07:41 |
| 13. Excite Network |
4,915 |
6.2 |
0:32:53 |
| 14. AT&T |
4,781 |
6.0 |
0:15:25 |
| 15. Classmates |
4,588 |
5.8 |
0:05:55 |
| 16. InfoSpace |
4,513 |
5.7 |
0:05:44 |
| 17. CNET Networks |
4,077 |
5.1 |
0:08:53 |
| 18. Symantec |
3,906 |
4.9 |
0:05:40 |
| 19. Ask Jeeves |
3,766 |
4.8 |
0:06:10 |
| 20. Gator.com |
3,494 |
4.4 |
0:12:36 |
| 21. Electronic Arts |
3,473 |
4.4 |
1:20:37 |
| 22. EarthLink |
3,442 |
4.3 |
0:10:01 |
| 23. WhenU.com |
3,252 |
4.1 |
0:02:09 |
| 24. United Online |
3,022 |
3.8 |
0:06:11 |
| 25. Intuit |
2,983 |
3.8 |
0:35:07 |
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Source: Nielsen//NetRatings |
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Top 25 Domains |
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| Domain |
Unique |
Reach % |
Time Spent |
| 1. yahoo.com |
33,867 |
42.7 |
0:32:14 |
| 2. msn.com |
28,583 |
36.1 |
0:23:03 |
| 3. aol.com |
28,355 |
35.8 |
0:12:31 |
| 4. passport.com |
14,418 |
18.2 |
0:03:40 |
| 5. microsoft.com |
13,703 |
17.3 |
0:07:13 |
| 6. google.com |
9,249 |
11.7 |
0:07:35 |
| 7. ebay.com |
8,337 |
10.5 |
0:56:56 |
| 8. amazon.com |
7,476 |
9.4 |
0:07:37 |
| 9. netscape.com |
7,206 |
9.1 |
0:12:37 |
| 10. go.com |
6,212 |
7.8 |
0:15:03 |
| 11. geocities.com |
6,183 |
7.8 |
0:04:34 |
| 12. classmates.com |
4,583 |
5.8 |
0:05:55 |
| 13. lycos.com |
3,895 |
4.9 |
0:10:29 |
| 14. msnbc.com |
3,652 |
4.6 |
0:08:37 |
| 15. gator.com |
3,462 |
4.4 |
0:12:35 |
| 16. hotmail.com |
3,362 |
4.2 |
0:23:27 |
| 17. whenu.com |
3,252 |
4.1 |
0:02:08 |
| 18. tripod.com |
3,189 |
4.0 |
0:03:10 |
| 19. cnn.com |
3,152 |
4.0 |
0:09:21 |
| 20. earthlink.net |
3,128 |
4.0 |
0:10:27 |
| 21. about.com |
3,008 |
3.8 |
0:04:12 |
| 22. windowsmedia.com |
2,984 |
3.8 |
0:05:31 |
| 23. pogo.com |
2,914 |
3.7 |
1:32:52 |
| 24. compuserve.com |
2,854 |
3.6 |
0:20:28 |
| 25. bluemountain.com |
2,808 |
3.5 |
0:08:16 |
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Source: Nielsen//NetRatings |
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Average Usage |
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|
Current Week |
Last Week |
% Change |
|
| Number of Sessions per Week |
7 |
7 |
0.00 |
| Page Views per Week |
246 |
245 |
0.41 |
| Page Views per Surfing Session |
37 |
37 |
0.00 |
| Time Spent per Week |
3:40:57 |
3:45:31 |
-2.02 |
| Time Spent during Surfing Session |
0:33:20 |
0:33:47 |
-1.33 |
| Duration a Page Viewed |
0:00:54 |
0:00:55 |
-1.33 |
| Active Internet Universe |
79,266,218 |
80,089,152 |
-1.03 |
| Current Internet Universe Estimate |
167,508,701 |
167,496,095 |
0.01 |
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Source: Nielsen//NetRatings |
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Sites with the Largest Increases in Traffic |
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| Site |
Average Daily |
%Change over prior |
| 1. NBCOlympics.com |
758 |
400.7 |
| 2. Yahoo Greetings |
1337 |
346.4 |
| 3. Olympics.com |
302 |
334.3 |
| 4. Phoenix.edu |
303 |
317.3 |
| 5. Hallmark.com |
739 |
240.4 |
| 6. AHAMembership.com |
309 |
208.4 |
| 7. CustomerOffers.com |
303 |
161.3 |
| 8. CalLottery.com |
224 |
160 |
| 9. Weatherbug.com |
3773 |
153.8 |
| 10. Sweepsclub.com |
279 |
146.4 |
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Source: Jupiter Media Metrix |
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Top 10 Categories |
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| Category |
Average Daily |
Average Daily |
| 1. Corporate presence |
50,775 |
51,248 |
| 2. Services |
44.945 |
46,521 |
| 3. Portals |
40,029 |
40,863 |
| 4. ISP |
25,076 |
25,082 |
| 5. Retail |
20,769 |
21,749 |
| 6. Search/Navigation |
19,881 |
19,659 |
| 7. Entertainment |
19,451 |
19,200 |
| 8. Directories/Resources |
16,184 |
17,048 |
| 9. News/information |
14,843 |
16,553 |
| 10. Promotional servers |
10,524 |
15,630 |
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Source: Jupiter Media Metrix |
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February 25, 2002 © 2002 Media Life
-Marty Beard is a staff writer for Media Life.
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