March Top 50
- by April 16, 2002
"While religion sites have grown steadily over the past year, the surge in visitors in March 2002 was quite significant, with traffic to the category double what it was just six months ago," said Stephen Kim, senior vice president of Jupiter Media Metrix' audience ratings division. "So far, the majority of religion sites to attract sizeable audiences focus on Christianity, though a few focus on Judaism or offer content tailored to multiple faiths."
Among the fastest growing religion sites in March 2002 versus the previous month were: Christianitytoday.com, up 71.4% to 633,000 unique visitors; Christianbook.com, up 43.6% to 890,000 visitors; Catholic.org, up 28.7% to 416,000 visitors; and Jewishworldreview.org, up 27.3% to 168,000 visitors. Wuzupgod.com and Liveoakfbc.org entered the Media Metrix reports for the first time ever in March 2002 with 652,000 and 556,000 unique visitors, respectively.
Newcomers
In a unique turn of events, three of the Media Metrix Top Newcomers – any site that appeared in the ratings for the first time and had a minimum of 500,000 unique visitors - generated substantial traffic by offering exactly the same joke page featuring a photo of a room with a request that users find out what was wrong with the picture. After gazing at the picture for several seconds, the page startles unsuspecting surfers with a sudden screaming head. These Newcomers - Dtig.de, Tekzoned.com and Jaybill.com - had 2.0 million, 1.7 million and 1.4 million visitors, respectively.
Other March top newcomers include: Spicycomet.com, this month's top newcomer, with 4.3 million visitors. Surfers were driven to the site by a deep discount on its software, which converts any video or audio file on a PC to DVD-compatible format. Driven largely by the NCAA basketball tournaments, Finalfour.net and Ncaa.com had 1.9 million and 595,000 visitors. Lethimstay.com, a gay-rights site endorsed by Rosie O'Donnell, had 580,000 visitors; and Farmersalmanac.com, with its anticipated planting and gardening calendar, had 612,000 visitors.
At Home and At Work Combined in the U.S.
March 2002 (03/01/02 - 03/31/02)
Rank Property Unique Visitors (000)
1 AOL Time Warner Network 91,899
2 MSN-Microsoft Sites 83,010
3 Yahoo! Sites 78,647
4 Terra Lycos 40,954
5 About/Primedia 36,016
6 Google Sites 33,000
7 Gator Network 32,154
8 EBay 29,334
9 Amazon Sites 29,259
10 CNET Networks 26,232
11 InfoSpace Network 24,991
12 Walt Disney Internet Group (WDIG) 23,588
13 Viacom Online 21,266
14 Vivendi-Universal Sites 20,766
15 Real.com Network 20,479
16 Classmates.com Sites 20,244
17 eUniverse Network 18,402
18 Ask Jeeves 17,955
19 Ticketmaster Sites 17,625
20 Excite Network 17,435
21 AmericanGreetings Property 16,655
22 AT&T Properties 16,646
23 Monster.com Property 15,373
24 Weather Channel, The 15,321
25 SBC Communications 14,633
26 Homestore.com Network 14,364
27 iVillage.com: The Womens Network 12,742
28 Gannett Sites 12,258
29 Sony Online 12,238
30 Earthlink 12,216
31 Expedia Travel 12,022
32 COOLSAVINGS.COM 11,967
33 United Online, Inc 11,765
34 Travelocity 11,686
35 EA Online 11,289
36 UGO Networks 10,560
37 LookSmart 10,543
38 WeatherBug (App) 10,161
39 NBC Internet Sites 9,939
40 Columbia House Sites 9,907
41 REDEEMMYGIFTS.COM 9,775
42 Atomshockwave Sites 9,495
43 Tribune Interactive 9,430
44 News Corp. Online 9,233
45 Barnes & Noble 8,978
46 Hewlett Packard 8,845
47 BONZI.COM* 8,822
48 X.com Sites 8,710
49 New York Times Digital 8,672
50 FortuneCity Global Community 8,637
