According to comScore, between July 2007 and 2008, the health information site category grew 21 percent in terms of visitors – more than four times the growth rate of the total U.S. Internet population.

The most popular site was WebMD Health, which had 17.3 million visitors in July (up 3 percent versus year ago).

In order of visitors, the top four health networks were as follows:

• WebMD Health, with 17.3 million visitors;
• Everyday Health with 14.7 million (up 63 percent);
• Revolution Health Network with 11.3 million visitors (up 182 percent); and
• AOL Health with 11.1 million (up 88 percent).

While Everyday Health and Revolution Health Network both achieved significant organic growth on their core Web sites, their recent partnerships with several smaller health sites, as well as some strategic acquisitions, contributed to their respective gains.

Source: Press Release, “Online Health Information Category Grows At Rate Four Times Faster Than Total Internet”, comScore, September 9, 2008

Adgregate Markets has released a service called ShopAds which allows companies to process secure credit card purchases within display ads.

Using the ShopAds technology, someone who views a ShopAds supported banner ad on a given publisher’s website can potentially order a product or service within that ad… without being redirected off the publisher’s website.

Like other widgets, ShopAds can be shared on social network profiles and other pages. However, what’s truly innovative is the ability for them to appear within any Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) standard display ad unit.

ShopAds are Flash-based and, unlike JavaScript based transactional ad units, don’t rely on a secure host site to ensure secure transactions. Rather, the secure, encrypted shopping carts inside ShopAds are portable into any HTML environment, including social network pages and blogs.

When a sale is complete, the ShopAds system confirms the transaction with a “thank you” and sends the buyer a tracking number via email. Buyers may continue shopping or return to the original widget screen, which can host large catalogs with potentially millions of products.

I think ShopAds has huge potential for advertisers/merchants and publishers/affiliates. Not to mention customers, since it overcomes the “inconvenience barrier” of having to click away from a website in order to inspect, or indeed buy, a product.

Source: Fred Aun “Allowing Web Users to Transact Through Ads”, The ClickZ Network, September 9, 2008

Google has struck a multi-year deal with NBC Universal to sell inventory on a number of NBC cable stations.

Under the arrangement, Google will sell ads on Sci Fi, Oxygen, MSNBC, CNBC and other networks. It will also partner with NBC Universal to develop new ad metrics and assess viewership data acquired from set top boxes (available under Google’s relationship with EchoStar’s DISH network).

Source: Zachary Rodgers, “Google Partners with NBC Universal on TV Ads”, The ClickZ Network, September 9, 2008

Heads up for Yahoo search engine watchers. Yahoo is rolling out changes to its crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms over the next few days.

According to Yahoo, we can expect to see some “ranking changes and page shuffling in the index.”

Source: Sharad Verma, “Weather Report: Yahoo! Search Index Update”, Yahoo! Search Blog, September 9, 2008