The Fed's quarter point increase in interest rates last week sparked a jump in online traffic to real estate sites, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.
The online audience measurement service
noted double-digit traffic growth during the week ending July 4 for Home Gain, AOL Home & Real Estate and MSN House & Home.
According to Nielsen//NetRatings, Home Gain grew 83 percent to
678,000 unique visitors, while AOL Home & Real Estate rose 54 percent to 909,000 visitors. MSN House & Home saw a 28 percent increase to 499,000 unique visitors. The top page viewed on MSN House &
Home included an overview on real estate financing, attracting 21 percent of those who visited the site.
Of course summer is the time when most people want to buy and sell homes.
Apart from
keeping tabs on interest rates, Web surfers flocked to NASA.gov to learn more about the planet Saturn and the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft mission. Traffic to NASA.gov jumped 84 percent during the week
ending July 4, according to Nielsen//NetRatings, as the Cassini spacecraft arrived at Saturn on July 1. Thirty-two percent of the site's 693,000 star gazers logged on for information on the
Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn. Visitors to the site viewed photos of Saturn and tracked the flight path of Cassini.
And the lovelorn hit the Web in search of a date for the long July 4
holiday weekend, as traffic to personals sites jumped 10 percent during the week ending July 4. Traffic to True.com rose 319 percent and 98 percent of the site's 797,000 visitors signed up for a True
account. Traffic to Myspace.com spiked 31 percent, attracting 409,000 unique visitors, while eHarmony.com jumped 28 percent to 389,000 unique visitors. Rounding out the top five fastest growing
personals sites, HotOrNot.com and Match.com rose 28 and 21 percent, respectively.