Tuesday, December 20,2005 @ 10:35am
Apple shows largest Web traffic growth
Apple's website was the fasting growing site on the internet among the top brands during the month of November, showing over 50 percent year-over-year growth and outpacing Google growth, which ranked No. 2, by nearly two times. Internet media and research company Nielsen//NetRatings today announced the fastest growing Web sites among the top 10 Web brands for November 2005. Yahoo!, which only saw 10 percent increase (No. 7) in traffic over last yaer, still leads all Web properties with the most unqiue visitors--more than 100 million during the month of November. However, Apple ranked No. 1 in year-over-year growth in November 2005, climbing 57 percent over November 2004--to nearly 31 million unique visitors. The traffic increase was driven primarly by traffic to the increasingly popular iTunes, according to Nielsen/Netratings.
Google and Amazon also saw significant year-over- year increases, growing 29 percent and 16 percent, respectively. While Apple was the fastest growing site among the top Web brands, several other sites experience tremendous growth.
PhotoBucket, MySpace, Facebook, Memegen.net. Slate, M&M's, LimeWire, Heavy.com, Wikipedia, and Mate1.com all saw growth of more than 250 percent over last year, making them the top 10 (respectively) fastest growings Web brands on the internet. PhotoBucket experienced nearly 1500 percent increase in November 2005 traffic--more than 15 million--over November 2004.
The report said that visitors age 12-24 are more likely than the average Web user to visit these fastest growing sites, which show approximately 50 to 90 percent more young visitors than the average Web site's audience.
"Sites that strongly appeal to generation Y are those at which they can control the content," said Davidson. "They provide a desirable service in an entertaining format. Thus it is not surprising that many of the fastest growing sites fall into the social networking, blogging, and online member community genres," said Gerry Davidson, senior media analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings.
"Among the top Web brands, fierce competition for share of online visitors
continues to be a catalyst for the launch of new products and features," said
Gerry Davidson, senior media analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings. "These additions
appear to be spearheading much of the top Web brand growth, because they keep
visitors interested and engaged," he continued.
Microsoft was No. 2 in overall audience with over 96 million unique visitors and MSN ranked No. 3 with just over 91 million visitors. Google was No. 3 in overall audience, reaching just over 85 million people. Apple was ranked No. 10 in overall audience for November.