Comscore Reports Traffic to Leading U.K. Sites in February

Announces New “Visits” Metric for Measuring User Engagement

Google Sites, Microsoft Sites and Bebo.com Represent the Most-Engaging Sites to U.K. Web Users as Measured by Average Visits per Visitor in a Month

London, UK, March 22, 2007 – Comscore, a leader in measuring the digital age, today revealed the top U.K. Internet properties and the top gaining properties during February, based on data collected through its Comscore World Metrix audience ratings service. The Company also introduced a new suite of metrics based on site “visits.” A “visit” is a frequency measure and indicator of user engagement defined as an individual’s set of interactions with a specific Web site. In counting visits, if an individual does not interact with the site for at least a 30-minute period, that visit will be defined as having been concluded and a new visit will be counted when the individual next accesses the site. Included among the new suite of metrics are total visits, average minutes per visit, average visits per visitor, and average visits per usage day.

“With the increased usage of technologies like AJAX, the value of page views as an engagement metric is declining,” said Bob Ivins, managing director of Comscore Europe. “In an attempt to keep pace with technology and provide our clients with the most relevant Web usage statistics, we are introducing a suite of metrics based on visits.”

“Visits” an Effective Gauge of Frequency

While each of the “visits” metrics offers a different measure of frequency, the “average visits per visitor” is the most illustrative of return visits per individual during the course of a month. Used in concert with the “unique visitors” metric, this measure can help give a more comprehensive view of a site’s performance.

In February, the top two sites in the U.K. in terms of unique visitors (Google Sites and Microsoft Sites, respectively) happened to also be the top two sites measured by average visits per visitor. Despite the congruence of the top two rankings, there were also some surprising differences between the lists. This was illustrated, in particular, by sites like Bebo.com, which ranked as the third-most engaging property (as measured by average visits per visitor) but as the 15th most-visited property; as well as Tiscali Sites, which was the 65th most-visited property in February but the seventh-most engaging property.

TABLE 1

* Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.
** Ranking based on the top 100 U.K. properties in February 2007.

TABLE 2

* Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.
**Ranking based on the top 100 U.K. properties in February 2007.

Other notable findings in the February data (as illustrated in Tables 3 and 4) include:

• Virgin Group led the list of top gainers due in large part to the launch of Virgin Media. Virgin Group’s 74 percent gain (to 10.7 million visitors) also catapulted it into the top 20 properties, landing it in eleventh place. Several other music-related sites saw impressive gains in February as well, including Limewire.com, up 7 percent to 3 million visitors; HMV, up 6 percent to 2.6 million visitors; Real.com Network, up 6 percent to 4.2 million visitors; and ARTISTdirect Network, up 6 percent to 4.5 million visitors.

• American Greetings Property, the second-largest gainer, saw a 30-percent increase in visitation to 2.8 million visitors, due in no small part to Valentine’s Day.

• Retailers that saw marked increases in February included NEXT Group, up 26 percent to 4.2 million visitors; and Marks & Spencer, up 6 percent to 2.4 million visitors.

• Social networking and blogging sites also appeared to take center stage in February with blogging property Six Apart Sites up 11 percent to 2.7 million visitors, Bebo.com up 10 percent to 7.2 million visitors, and Bolt Media up 6 percent to 4.9 million visitors.

TABLE 3

* Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

TABLE 4

*Ranking based on the top 100 U.K. properties in February 2007.
** Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

About Comscore World Metrix

Comscore World Metrix is the first service to continuously measure and report online behaviour on a world-wide basis, providing visitation metrics and demographic characteristics for Web site audiences around the world. With active representation of countries that comprise the vast majority of the global Internet population, World Metrix provides its clients with worldwide Internet population estimates and harmonized online performance metrics based on a consistent methodology across all countries. More than 100 clients subscribe to Comscore’s World Metrix service, including 8 of the top 10 interactive advertising agencies.

About Comscore
Comscore, Inc. is a global leader in measuring the digital age. This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of more than 2 million consumers who have given Comscore permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behaviour, including online and offline purchasing. Comscore panellists also participate in survey research that captures and integrates their attitudes and intentions. Through its proprietary technology, Comscore measures what matters across a broad spectrum of behaviour and attitudes. Comscore consultants apply this deep knowledge of customers and competitors to help clients design powerful marketing strategies and tactics that deliver superior ROI. Comscore services are used by global leaders such as AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Verizon, Best Buy, The Newspaper Association of America, Tribune Interactive, ESPN, Fox Sports, Nestlé, MBNA, Universal McCann, the United States Postal Service, Merck and Expedia. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com.

Press
Bill Daddi
Daddi Brand Communications
646-370-1341
press@comscore.com