Online Health Category Grows 12%; WebMD Leads 1Q Traffic
- by Laurie Petersen , May 22, 2007
Health-related search continues to be a key traffic driver. "Pregnancy" was the top health-related search phrase for the first quarter, with more than 17 million entries. "Cancer," "flu" and "fitness" each generated at least 15 million searches.
Category leader remains WebMD Health with an average of 17.1 million unique visitors per month (up 25% over 2006), followed by NIH.gov (the National Institutes of Health) with 9.8 million visitors (up 8%). Yahoo Health enjoyed an 83% increase in visitors with 6.7 million.
Category newcomers Healthline.com and QualityHealth.com cracked the top 10 list with growth rates of 269% and 114% respectively.
Steve Case's RevolutionHealth.com has seen its traffic more than double from 239,000 visitors in January to 486,000 visitors in March, comScore reported.
"While the larger and more established health portals are continuing to grow, the category is being shaken up by a few upstarts," said Carolina Petrini, vice president of pharmaceutical solutions at comScore. "In the past year, Healthline.com and QualityHealth.com have more than doubled their respective online audiences to nearly 3 million visitors per month."
Top 10 Online Health Portals Q1 2007 vs. Q1 2006 Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore Media Metrix | |||
Property | Average Monthly Unique Visitors (000) | ||
Q1 2006 | Q1 2007 | Percent Change | |
Total U.S. Internet Population | 169,728 | 176,195 | 4% |
Health - Information | 49,473 | 55,260 | 12% |
WebMD Health | 13,700 | 17,114 | 25% |
NIH.gov | 9,061 | 9,816 | 8% |
MSN Health | 7,951 | 8,068 | 1% |
Yahoo Health | 3,642 | 6,671 | 83% |
Everyday Health | 4,135 | 6,421 | 55% |
About.com Health | 5,177 | 5,827 | 13% |
MayoClinic.com | 4,032 | 4,072 | 1% |
AOL Health | 2,070 | 3,659 | 77% |
Healthline.com | 725 | 2,674 | 269% |
QualityHealth.com | 1,206 | 2,586 | 114% |
Searches Conducted Using Major U.S. Search Engines Number of Searches Q1 2007 Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore | |
Keyword or Phrase | Searches (MM) |
Pregnancy | 17.5 |
Cancer | 15.3 |
Flu | 15.3 |
Fitness | 15.0 |
Cold | 13.8 |
Rash | 12.6 |
Nutrition | 7.4 |
Weight Loss | 7.2 |
Diabetes | 4.9 |
Depression | 4.9 |
