U.S. Internet Users Flock To TV, School and Sports Sites in September 2009
By Anna Johnson on October 27th, 2009comScore’s ‘Top 50 U.S. Web Properties for September 2009′ study reveals that September traffic largely reflected seasonal trends, specifically, the start of the fall television season, school year and National Football League season, along with the upcoming Major League Baseball playoffs.
With networks launching new television series, Americans flocked to TV sites, causing the category to grow 17 percent over August 2009 to 95.6 million visitors. Yahoo TV was the most popular TV site with nearly 20 million visitors (up 63 percent), followed by AOL Television with 13 million (up 7 percent) and NBC Network with 11.4 million.
Meanwhile, the start of the North American school year saw education information and computer software sites receive increased traffic.
Education Information sites grew 15 percent to 72.3 million visitors, led by Pearson Education with nearly 17 million visitors (up 40 percent), Hot Chalk with 13 million visitors (up 64 percent), and Classes USA with 8 million visitors (up 13 percent).
The Computer Software category grew 14 percent, attracting 34.4 million visitors in September, led by Intuit, which grew 18 percent to 6.4 million visitors. Symantec Store followed with 6.2 million visitors (up 11 percent), while Wareseeker.com came in third with 3.7 million visitors (up 76 percent).
The combination of the upcoming Major League Baseball playoffs and the start of the NFL season saw traffic to Sports sites reach an all-time high of over 98 million visitors, up 14 percent versus August. Yahoo Sports was the most popular Sports site with 38 million visitors during the month (up 32 percent), followed by ESPN with 29 million visitors (up 21 percent) and NFL Internet Group with 19 million visitors (up 19 percent).
