Top-growing US web categories in January 2008

Fact recorded on: February 23, 2008. Categories: Web traffic, WWW.

As the presidential primaries kicked off, the politics category jumped 65% to 13.8 mln visitors as Americans went online for news coverage and opinions and to visit candidate Web sites. BarackObama.com led the category with 2.2 mln visitors, up 429% from December, followed by HillaryClinton.com with 1.1 mln visitors (up 202%). On the Republican side, MikeHuckabee.com attracted 937,000 visitors, up 96%, while JohnMcCain.com grew 261% to 596,000 visitors. The career category was led by CareerBuilder LLC with 24.8 mln visitors, followed by Yahoo! HotJobs with 17.4 mln visitors and Monster with 17.1 mln visitors. Concerns over a shaky real estate market, along with those resolving to move residences in 2008, precipitated a 28% gain to 42 mln visitors to the real estate category in January 2008. Move Network led the category with 10.1 mln visitors (up 49%), followed by Yahoo! Real Estate with 4.6 mln visitors (50%), and Rent.com with 3.5 mln visitors (up 51%). Travel-related sites experienced an increase in traffic as people looked to escape the winter doldrums and take advantage of post-holiday travel deals. Ground/cruise sites gained 27% to 11.3 mln visitors, while car rental sites grew 26% to 5.1 mln visitors, and hotels/resorts gained 23% to nearly 31 mln visitors.

December 2007 January 2008 Growth, YTY
Total Audience 183,619 184,239 0
Taxes 7,729 23,336 202
Politics 8,384 13,807 65
Career Services 49,150 64,144 31
Real Estate 32,747 41,991 28
Ground/Cruise 8,909 11,303 27
Car Rental 4,065 5,130 26
Computer Software 26,756 33,548 25
Financial Information 32,109 39,792 24
Hotels/Resorts 25,131 30,958 23
Online Travel 34,581 42,530 23
Source: comScore

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