• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, September 7, 2007

Top Web Sites Keep Visitors But Overlap Service

A new release from Nielsen//NetRatings announced that, among the three key Web  categories, search providers had the highest visitor retention rates,  with an average of 71 percent of June visitors at home returning in July. Google Search led, followed by Yahoo! Search, and MSN/Windows Live Search. Visitor retention rates were slightly higher among  the work audience.

A substantial portion of visitors went to more than one of these  three search sites in July, says the report. MSN/Windows Live Search had the highest audience  overlap, with 84 percent of its unique visitors also going to Google Search,  Yahoo! Search, or both.

Ken Cassar, chief analyst, Nielsen//NetRatings, said "These search providers are doing a good job of bringing their visitors back  month after month... an important sign of the health of their customer  relationships and... (with) significant financial implications, given the  expense of acquiring new customers."

The top three sites in the career development category, CareerBuilder Network,  Monster and Yahoo! HotJobs, had an average month-over-month audience retention rate of 38 percent  at home, and at work, it was 44 percent.

Compared to the other two categories, the top sites in multi-category travel,  Expedia, Orbitz Worldwide Network and Travelocity, had the lowest average month-over-month  at home visitor retention rates, at 31 percent.

 "Career development and travel sites are used less frequently, so  their challenge is to be top of mind when it comes time to look for a new career  opportunity or plan a trip," said Cassar.

For more information, please visit Nielsen-netratings here.