• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, February 26, 2020

The brands recognized on SimilarWeb's Digital 100 annual list and ranking represent 20 categories that impact millions of consumers, from Travel and Beauty to Auto and Insurance. The ranking is calculated by the number of unique visitors to a site throughout the year, taking into consideration both desktop and mobile web traffic.

The Digital 100 showcases the top five highest-ranking sites in the U.S. per category, based on average Monthly Active Users in 2019. One additional site, per category, is recognized as “one to watch.”

Those in this category had at least 5% of the average Monthly Unique Visitors as the number one ranked site in their category, and experienced a higher year-over-year percentage growth than the category as a whole. 

On average, the monthly unique visitors to the Top 5 Auto sites increased by 3.4% from 2018. Cargurus.com tops the list, followed by kkb.com, autotrader.com and carfax.com and cars.com. SimilarWeb names carvana.com as “one to watch.”

It seems that consumers are searching for used Teslas. The top five non-branded organic keywords driving desktop traffic to the category were “car loan calculator,” “used car,” “car value,” “auto loan calculator” and “used tesla.”

On average, the monthly unique visitors to the top five Apparel sites increased by 7.9% from 2018. At No. 1, gap.com saw the majority of its traffic coming from the mobile web at 66.6%.

Nike.com followed at No. 2, with victoriasecret.com, teespring.com and forever21.com to follow. Converse.com -- which experienced the highest percentage of growth in monthly unique visitors at 77.8% -- came in as the “one to watch.”

On average, the monthly unique visitors to the top five airlines sites rose by 4.4% in 2019 from the year prior. A 2% point increase year-over-year in direct site visits is seen in this category based on growing brand awareness.

Southwest.com came in at No. 1, followed by aa.com, delta.com, united.com, and jetblue.com. Spirit.com saw a higher percent growth in monthly unique visitors, compared with the category as a whole, at +12% 

Publishers, general news and media also gained in website visits.

On average, the monthly unique visitors to the top five General News and Media sites fell by 7.8% from 2018. Cnn.com topped the list, followed by nytimes.com, foxnews.com, usatoday.com, and washingintonpost.com.

The top five non-branded organic keywords driving desktop traffic to the category were “trump,” “news,” “trump news,” “game of thrones,” and “hong kong.” News.yahoo.com saw a higher percentage growth in monthly unique visitors than the category as a whole, at +354.2%.