• by Masha Geller , July 12, 2001

Jupiter Media Metrix today released their U.S. Top 50 Web and Digital Media property ratings for June 2001, and according to the report, pop-up and pop-under pages are responsible for a large percentage of unique visitors to the top 50 sites. But do those users count?

For example, eBay sites rose from number 12 in May to number 8 in June with 23.3 million unique visitors, a 21% increase over the previous month. This increase, JMM says, is primarily caused by a 66% increase in Half.com's unique visitors (Half.com is owned by eBay) from 5.8 to 9.7 million as a result of its pop-up campaign. Half.com deployed pop-up pages from MyPoints and the New York Times sites.

eBay's pop-up-related traffic increase is not an isolated occurrence. Real.com Network's unique visitor count went up 17% from 12.1 million unique visitors in May 2001 to 14.2 million in June, as a result of Real.com's pop-up campaign, launched in June. Real's pop-ups accounted for approximately one million of its total unique visitors.

Also, Colonize.com increased 19% in unique visitors and rose to number 27, with just under 10 million unique visitors. JMM says this increase is also in part the result of its pop-up campaign, primarily deployed through Yahoo! sites. While Colonize increased its pop-up campaign in June, its total advertising impressions decreased significantly during the same period.

The above increases don't automatically equal success for the sites. Media Metrix reports all content with which users interact, including pop-up and pop-under Web pages, which spawn new browsers. And as Doug McFarland, president of Media Metrix said, "It is impossible to determine whether a user intended to visit a site that is also accessible through pop-up or pop-under pages."

That's especially relevant when it comes to the much-debated X10.com pop-up and pop-under online advertising strategy, which continues to push the site up in Media Metrix' rankings, from number 5 in May 2001 to number 4 in June 2001. Top sources of traffic to X10.com in June 2001 were MSN.com, contributing 9.1 million unique visitors; Weather.com, contributing 4.1 million unique visitors; Fastclick.net with 2.8 million unique visitors; and Yahoo.com with 2.5 million unique visitors.

However, according to a new Jupiter Research Concept report, 73% of its 28.6 million unique visitors left the site or window within 20 seconds in May 2001 and a mere 2.7 million unique visitors actually clicked on the pop-under window or visited the X10.com site (Media Metrix does not report page usage lasting less than two seconds).

"At first glance, X10.com's 10% conversion rate appears impressive," said Marissa Gluck, analyst, Jupiter Media Metrix. "However, X10.com's number of engaged shoppers, defined as visitors who have spent at least 3 minutes on the site, is only 1.2 million, further decreasing its conversion rate to 4.2%."

So why count the pop-ups? Anticipating a criticism for crediting e-tailers with traffic generated by pop ads, as occurred last month, the research firm said its tally policy is warranted. "As an objective, third-party measurement company, Media Metrix has a responsibility to include and report interaction with all legitimate Web pages without bias towards content, business purpose, or method of acquiring viewers," McFarland said.

Additional Highlights of the Media Metrix June 2001 Digital Media and Web Ratings:

- As in past years, Internet usage is increasing at home in the summer months while usage at work is decreasing. Time spent on the Internet at home increased 4.1%, from 73.5 billion total minutes in May 2001 to 76.5 billion minutes in June. Conversely, time spent on the Internet at work decreased 3.7%, from 29.3 billion total minutes in May 2001 to 28.3 billion in June.

- Napster Usage - Napster Digital, which includes usage of the service's websites and music file-swapping applications, continues to fall in the ratings - from the number 23 property in May 2001 to number 25 in June 2001. The property had 10.5 million unique visitors in May 2001, down from 10.9 million the previous month. However usage of the application increased 3%, from 8.6 million unique users in May 2001 to 8.9 million in June.

- Top Newcomers - This month's notable top newcomers - sites that appeared in the ratings for the first time and had a minimum of 500,000 unique visitors - include: Reata.org and Quickinspirations.com, both inspirational websites, with 2.4 million and 1.8 million unique visitors, respectively; gifts sites Nabiscogifts.com, Ebaystores.com and Gifts.com with 989,000 unique visitors, 814,000 unique visitors and 694,000 unique visitors, respectively; and consumer packaged good sites Headandshoulders.com, Directvdsl.com and Getsmartcard.com with 905,000 unique visitors, 861,000 unique visitors and 881,000 unique visitors, respectively.

- Breaking Into the Media Metrix Top 50 - Notable sites to break into the June 2001 Top 50 include: Vivendi-Universal Sites, a new rollup of sites resulting from last year's merger of Vivendi and Universal Studios, with 15.6 million unique visitors, and Nextcard.com, an online issuer of consumer credit, with 7.8 million unique visitors.