U.S. Presidential Race Drives Americans Online for Election News

Halloween and Early Holiday Browsing Boost Traffic to Retail Sites

RESTON, Va., Nov. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- comScore, Inc. (Nasdaq: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at the top online properties for October 2008 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. The U.S. presidential election, Halloween and the approaching holiday season were significant drivers of Internet traffic for the month.

(Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080115/COMSCORELOGO)

'The historic presidential race had millions of Americans glued to their computers for the latest news during the final stretch of the campaign,' commented Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. 'Prospective voters were able to get up-to-the minute information on candidates, important issues and the latest poll results as they prepared to check off the box in the voting booth on November 4.'

Politics Category Tops Fastest-Growing List in October

October saw a significant surge in traffic to the politics category, as Americans tuned in closely to the presidential and local congressional races. The category grew 40 percent to 28 million visitors in October, making it the fastest growing category for the month.

BarackObama.com was the most visited site in the category with 8.5 million visitors, up 59 percent versus the previous month, followed by JohnMcCain.com with 3.8 million visitors (up 29 percent). October marked the largest audiences of the season for both of the candidates. Other sites generating substantially higher traffic in the month included: CatholicVote.com (up 410 percent to 1.5 million visitors), GOP.com (up 111 percent to 1.2 million visitors), and Factcheck.org (up 96 percent to 1 million visitors). Voting advocacy sites VoteforChange (up 62 percent to 2.4 million visitors) and RocktheVote.com (up 46 percent to 1.1 million visitors) also saw strong gains.

Saturday Night Live's election comedy sketches, including Tina Fey's popular impersonation of Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin, helped NBC Universal rank as one of the top 10 gaining properties for the month. NBC Universal's online channel for Saturday Night Live (SNL) content surged 85 percent to 4.4 million visitors in October.

Approaching Holidays and Halloween Cause Traffic Boost at Retail Categories

The combination of Halloween and the looming holiday shopping season resulted in strong traffic increases to several retail categories in October.

Retail -- apparel sites grew 13 percent to more than 67 million visitors as people searched for Halloween costumes, early holiday deals and the latest seasonal apparel in October. The category was led by BuyCostumes.com, which witnessed a 107-percent increase to 9.5 million visitors. Several other costume-related sites also experienced gains in October, including CostumeSuperCenter.com (up 110 percent to 2.6 million visitors) and Costumzee.com (up 161 percent to 2.1 million visitors).

In addition to costume retailers, several other apparel retailers experienced strong traffic growth during the month, including Zappos.com (up 18 percent to 5.1 million visitors), Gap Online (up 24 percent to 4.2 million visitors) and AE.com (up 18 percent to 3.3 million visitors).

With the holidays quickly approaching, traffic to the retail -- toys category surged 17 percent to more than 25 million visitors as Americans searched early for this year's top toys. Toysrus sites led the category with 9.3 million visitors, a gain of 28 percent, followed by Barbie with 3.4 million visitors (up 10 percent) and The LEGO Group with 2.7 million visitors (up 22 percent). Several other popular toy brands also experienced double-digit growth in October, including AmericanGirl.com (up 51 percent), Fisher Price (up 43 percent) and LeapFrog.com (up 90 percent).

Top 50 Properties

Google Sites continued to lead as the most visited property in October with 147 million visitors, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 144.9 million visitors and Microsoft Sites with 123.5 million visitors. All of the top ten properties maintained their positions from September.