Americans Gear Up For Back-to-School at Education Information and Book Sites

Seasonal Allergies and Weather Drive Traffic to Pharmacy and Weather Sites

RESTON, Va., Sept. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly analysis of U.S. web activity at the top online properties for August 2011 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. Millions of Americans prepared for the 2011-2012 school year by browsing Education Information and Career Training sites, and making purchases on Book sites. Between summer travel, seasonal weather and Hurricane Irene, visitors had plenty of reason to browse Weather sites, while information on allergies and flu shots drove traffic to Pharmacy sites.

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"Online activity was largely driven by back-to-school in August as Americans made final preparations on all fronts for the upcoming academic year," said Jeff Hackett, executive vice president of comScore. "Weather was also top of mind for many Americans, especially on the east coast with the onset of Hurricane Irene, and Pharmacy sites saw pickup in time with allergy and flu shot season."

Web Receives A's in Back-to-School Planning

Education Information represented the fastest growing category in August, growing 19 percent to 73.7 million visitors in July. Pearson Education ranked first in the category with 15.6 million visitors (up 35 percent), followed by HotChalk with 13.6 million (up 31 percent), ClassesUSA.com with 6.6 million (up 8 percent), About.com Education with 6.4 million (up 29 percent) and CoolMath.com Inc with 3.7 million visitors. College students checked out the reviews on their professors for the semester at RateMyProfessors.com, which jumped 45 percent to 3.2 million visitors, while Blackboard.com attracted 3 million visitors (up 64 percent).  

Career Training and Education Sites also experienced a traffic spike in August, growing 12 percent to 12.3 million visitors. LiveCareer.com ranked as the category leader with 1.2 million visitors (up 23 percent), followed by FastWeb.com with 698,000 (up 13 percent) and Learn4Good.com with 559,000. AesopOnline.com nearly tripled its audience to 370,000 in August (up 192 percent, while Pryor.com rounded out the top five with 357,000 visitors (up 10 percent).

Book retailers represented another top-gaining category in August, growing 11 percent to 26.1 million visitors. Barnes & Noble ranked #1 in the category with 9.8 million visitors (up 19 percent), while BookSpan property saw 1.8 million. Chegg.com proved to be a great option for students on a budget, surging 273 percent to the #3 spot with nearly 1.7 million visitors. Borders Group, Inc. closely followed with nearly 1.7 million visitors, while AbeBooks took fifth with 1.6 million (up 56 percent).

Americans Feel Under the Weather with Hurricane Irene and Allergies

Between the onset of Hurricane Irene and seasonal August weather, Americans had reason to visit Weather sites during the month. The category grew 7 percent to an all-time high of nearly 100 million visitors, with The Weather Channel taking the top spot reaching 69 million visitors (up 15 percent). WeatherBug Property came in second with 24.4 million visitors, followed by Weather Underground with 13.3 million (up 24 percent), AccuWeather Sites with 11.6 million (up 34 percent) and Yahoo! Weather with 9.9 million.

Pharmacy sites experienced healthy growth spurt in August, although their visitors might not have been feeling so well. The category grew 8 percent to 5.4 million visitors, with QZMart earning the top with 533,000 visitors (up 4 percent). Express Scripts, Inc. drew 490,000 visitors (up 8 percent), followed by CareMark.com with 418,000 (up 3 percent), HY-VEE.com with 243,000 (up 17 percent) and MedCo.com with 227,000 (up 22 percent).  

Top 50 Properties

Google Sites ranked as the #1 property in August with 183.4 million visitors, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 177.5 million and Microsoft Sites with 177.2 million. ESPN, Answers.com Sites and Adobe Sites each jumped 5 positions, to rank consecutively at #24, #25 and #26. The Washington Post Company, CareerBuilder LLC and AT&T, Inc. newly appeared on the chart this month at #47, #49 and #50, respectively.

Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking

Google Ad Network led the August Ad Focus ranking with a reach of 93.4 percent of Americans online, followed by Yahoo! Network Plus (87.4 percent) and AOL Advertising (86.9 percent). AT&T AdWorks debuted on the ranking at #4 with an 83.9-percent reach, while ValueClick Networks rounded out the top five with at 82.8-percent.

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About comScore Media Metrix

comScore Media Metrix provides industry-leading Internet audience measurement services that report details of online media usage, visitor demographics and online buying power for the home, work and university audiences across local U.S. markets and across the globe. comScore Media Metrix reports are used by financial analysts, advertising agencies, publishers and marketers. comScore Media Metrix syndicated ratings are based on industry-sanctioned sampling methodologies.

About comScore

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital business analytics. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

SOURCE comScore, Inc.

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