comScore Reports Traffic to Leading French Sites in February

London (ots/PRNewswire) -

- Announces New 'Visits' Metric for Measuring User Engagement

comScore, a leader in measuring the digital age, today revealed
the top French Internet properties and the top gaining properties
during February, based on data collected through its comScore World
Metrix audience ratings service. The Company also introduced a new
suite of metrics based on site "visits." A "visit" is a frequency
measure and indicator of user engagement, defined as an individual's
set of interactions with a specific Web site. In counting visits, if
an individual does not interact with the site for at least a
30-minute period, that visit will be defined as having been concluded
and a new visit will be counted when the individual next accesses the
site. Included among the new suite of metrics are total visits,
average minutes per visit, average visits per visitor, and average
visits per usage day.

"With the increased usage of technologies like AJAX, the value of
page views as an engagement metric is declining," said Bob Ivins,
managing director of comScore Europe. "In an attempt to keep pace
with technology and provide our clients with the most relevant Web
usage statistics, we are introducing a new suite of metrics based on
visits."

"Visits" an Effective Gauge of Frequency

While each of the "visits" metrics offers a different measure of
frequency, the "average visits per visitor" is the most illustrative
of return visits per individual during the course of a month. Used in
concert with the "unique visitors" metric, this measure can help give
a more comprehensive view of a site's performance.

In February, the top three sites in France by unique visitors
(Google Sites, Microsoft Sites and France Telecom, respectively)
happened to also be the top three sites based on average visits per
visitor. Despite the congruence of the top three rankings, there were
also some surprising differences between the two metrics:

-- Groupe Amaury, the 69th most-visited property in February that
includes lequipe.fr, was the sixth-most engaging property (as measured
by average visits per visitor);
-- T-Online, the 42nd most-visited property that includes Club-
Internet.fr, was the seventh most-engaging property;
-- Neuf Telecom, the 61st most-visited property, was the eighth most-
engaging property.
TABLE 1
Top 10 Properties by Unique Visitors (000)(i)
French Unique Visitors, Age 15+
February 2007
Total France - Home and Work Locations(ii)
Source: comScore World Metrix
Unique
Rank Property Visitors
(000)
Total Internet Users 24,464
1 Google Sites 17,006
2 Microsoft Sites 15,843
3 France Telecom 13,438
4 Iliad/Free.fr Sites 11,980
5 eBay 10,728
6 Groupe Pages Jaunes 10,539
7 Yahoo! Sites 10,503
8 Wikipedia Sites 7,941
9 Groupe PPR 7,835
10 Skyrock Network 7,828
(i) Ranking based on the top 100 French properties in February 2007.
(ii) Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or
access from mobile phones or PDAs.
TABLE 2
Top 10 Properties by Average Visits per Visitor(i)
French Unique Visitors, Age 15+
February 2007
Total France - Home and Work Locations(ii)
Source: comScore World Metrix
Rank Property Average
Visits/Visitor
Total Internet Visits 63.3
1 Google Sites 41.6
2 Microsoft Sites 33.9
3 France Telecom 23.2
4 Skyrock Network 19.9
5 Yahoo! Sites 13.8
6 Groupe Amaury 13.0
7 T-Online Sites 12.6
8 Neuf Telecom 11.7
9 eBay 10.4
10 Iliad/Free.fr Sites 10.3
(i) Ranking based on the top 100 French properties in February 2007.
(ii) Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or
access from mobile phones or PDAs.

Other notable findings in the February data (as illustrated in
Tables 3 and 4) include:

-- Google Sites, Microsoft Sites and France Telecom retained their
rankings as the top three properties among French Internet users, with
17, 15.8 and 13.4 million French visitors, respectively.
-- Helped by Valentine's Day, French dating site MeetIC was the biggest
gainer in February's ranking, up 42 percent to 3.9 million French
visitors; greeting card purveyor American Greetings Property was the
third-biggest gainer, up 20 percent to 1.9 million visitors.
-- Two gaming sites appeared on the list of top 10 gainers, including
French lottery site Francaise des Jeux, the fourth-biggest gainer with
1.8 million French visitors (a 19-percent increase), and
KadoDuJour.com, the ninth-biggest gainer with 1.5 million French
visitors (a 6-percent increase).
TABLE 3
Top 10 Online Properties by Unique Visitor (000)
French Unique Visitors, Age 15+(i)
January vs. February 2007
Total France - Home and Work Locations(i)
Source: comScore World Metrix
Jan.-07 Feb. -07 Percentage
(000) (000) Change
Total FR Internet Audience,
Age 15+ 24,560 24,464 0%
Google Sites 17,090 17,006 0%
Microsoft Sites 15,966 15,843 -1%
France Telecom 13,746 13,438 -2%
Iliad/Free.fr Sites 12,764 11,980 -6%
eBay 11,038 10,728 -3%
Groupe Pages Jaunes 10,993 10,539 -4%
Yahoo! Sites 11,143 10,503 -6%
Wikipedia Sites 8,062 7,941 -1%
Groupe PPR 8,714 7,835 -10%
Skyrock Network 7,835 7,828 0%
(i) Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or
access from mobile phones or PDAs.
TABLE 4
Top 10 Gaining Properties Ranked by Percentage Change (i)
French Unique Visitors, Age 15+ (i)
January vs. February, 2007
Total France - Home and Work Locations(ii)
Source: comScore World Metrix
Jan.-07 Feb.-07 Percentage
(000) (000) Change
Total FR Internet Audience,
Age 15+ 24,259 24,409 1%
MeetIC 2,728 3,883 42%
The Mozilla Organization 2,155 2,925 36%
American Greetings Property 1,547 1,861 20%
Francaise des Jeux 1,559 1,849 19%
RADIOBLOGCLUB.COM 1,478 1,664 13%
CITYVOX.FR 1,363 1,534 13%
SUR-LA-TOILE.COM 1,503 1,667 14%
Michelin Group 3,818 4,070 13%
KADODUJOUR.COM 1,458 1,541 6%
DAILYMOTION.COM 5,016 5,280 5%
(i) Ranking based on the top 100 French properties in February 2007.
(ii) Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or
access from mobile phones or PDAs.

About comScore World Metrix

comScore World Metrix is the first service to continuously measure
and report online behaviour on a world-wide basis, providing
visitation metrics and demographic characteristics for Web site
audiences around the world. With active representation of countries
that comprise the vast majority of the global Internet population,
World Metrix provides its clients with worldwide Internet population
estimates and harmonized online performance metrics based on a
consistent methodology across all countries. More than 100 clients
subscribe to comScore's World Metrix service, including 8 of the top
10 interactive advertising agencies.

About comScore

comScore, Inc. is a global leader in measuring the digital age.
This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of more
than 2 million consumers who have given comScore permission to
confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behaviour,
including online and offline purchasing. comScore panelists also
participate in survey research that captures and integrates their
attitudes and intentions. Through its proprietary technology,
comScore measures what matters across a broad spectrum of behaviour
and attitudes. comScore consultants apply this deep knowledge of
customers and competitors to help clients design powerful marketing
strategies and tactics that deliver superior ROI. comScore services
are used by global leaders such as AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Verizon,
Best Buy, The Newspaper Association of America, Tribune Interactive,
ESPN, Fox Sports, Nestle, MBNA, Universal McCann, the United States
Postal Service, Merck and Expedia. For more information, please visit
http://www.comscore.com .

Web site: http://www.comscore.com

ots Originaltext: comScore, Inc.
Im Internet recherchierbar: http://www.presseportal.de

Contact:
Bob Ivins, comScore Europe, +44-207-099-1761, or bivins@comscore.com