Hit Search Limited liverpool 0845 643 9289

Online searches up for tax, greetings cards and politics in Feburary

By Andrew Redfern @ 19th March 2008 5:41 pm

comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR), today released its monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at top online properties for February 2008 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service.

February, a month that generally exhibits lower visitation totals as a result of having fewer days, saw increased visitation to tax, greetings, politics and news sites.

“February is one of the busiest times of the year for greetings and gift sites with the celebration of Valentine’s Day,” said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix.

“These sites are particularly convenient for the procrastinators among us who wait until the last minute to buy their loved ones a gift.”

The tax category ranked as the fastest-gaining site category with a 34-percent increase to more than 31 million visitors as Americans continued preparing their taxes in advance of the April 15 deadline. The category was led by IRS.gov with nearly 18 million visitors (up 43 percent), followed by TaxACT with 9.6 million visitors (up 66 percent) and H&R Block with 6.7
million visitors (up 26 percent).

The Valentine’s Day holiday caused both the flowers/gifts/greetings and e-card site categories to grow 17 and 14 percent, respectively.

The flowers/gifts/greetings category saw substantial gains by flower sites with, ProFlowers.com (up 244 percent to 3.8 million visitors), FTD.com (up 273 percent to 3.8 million visitors), and 1-800-flowers.com (up 125 percent
to 2.7 million visitors) each showing strong growth.

The e-cards category was led by AmericanGreetings Property with nearly 20 million visitors, followed by Evite.com with 5.8 million visitors and Hallmark.com with 5.1 million visitors.

With much-hyped Super Tuesday (February 5) and other primaries across the country occurring in February, the politics site category continued to see growth for the second consecutive month, increasing 9 percent to 15 million visitors. BarackObama.com led the category with 3.2 million visitors, up 46 percent from January, followed by HillaryClinton.com with 1.5 million visitors (up 31 percent).

Republican-party nominee John McCain’s site increased 49 percent to 888,000 visitors.

News categories, both business/finance and general news, saw increases in February with economic worries and presidential primaries dominating the national agenda. Business/finance news sites gained 6 percent to reach nearly 62 million visitors, with Yahoo! Finance, AOL Money & Finance, and MSN Money leading the category.

Would you like to know more about search engines marketing ? If so, contact Hit Search on 0845 643 9289. Remember, its a big world out there, make sure you become visible.

Other Related Stories That May Be Of Interest: