According to comScore, Google and Facebook were some of the biggest winners last year when it comes to the top gaining web properties and overall search market growth.

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ:SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, has released their report that highlights the major trends in Internet activity in the United States in 2007. This includes the top gaining web properties and site categories, and overall core search market growth. The biggest winners in 2007 featured some of the top Internet brands, including Google, Facebook, Wikipedia and Craigslist.

comScore studied the growth in visitors of the top 100 U.S. Internet properties in 2007. Their study shows that 2007 was a strong year for many of the larger web properties. Facebook.com got a lot of benefit when they opened registration to all of us. Facebook jumped up 81 percent versus December 2006 to 34.7 million visitors in December 2007. Wikipedia went up 34 percent to nearly 52 million visitors, Craigslist.org went up 74 percent to 24.5 million visitors. And AT&T jumped up 27 percent to 30.2 million visitors, many because of AT&T’s deal with the iPhone. The Yellow Book Network jumped up 137 percent to 10.4 million visitors.

comScore also reports that “several of the top-gaining properties were driven by the acquisition of Web entities including, but not limited to, the following:

– Everyday Health gained 349 percent driven by its acquisition of Drugs.com and other sites.

– Women’s category leader, Glam Media, grew 213 percent during the year, due in large part to the addition of several new entities, including Quality Health Network, MyYearbook.com, and LifeScript.com, among others.

– Yellow Book Network grew 137-percent to 10.4 million visitors, as visitation to Yellowbook.com Sites tripled (up 207 percent t 4.6 million visitors) and one new entity was added to the property.

– iVillage.com: The Women’s Network gained 27 percent with the addition of Sugar Publishing, MakeoverSolutions.com, and iWin.com, among others.

– Demand Media added numerous entities under its Demand Media Knowledge and Demand Media Games media titles, which contributed to its 149-percent growth.

– OfficeMax’s dramatic 199-percent gain was driven primarily by a December 2007 surge in visitation to its popular viral holiday greetings site ElfYouself.com.”

comScore Top 20 Gaining Properties by Percentage Change in Unique
Visitors* (U.S.)
December 2007 vs. December 2006
Total U.S. Home, Work and University Internet Users
Source: comScore Media Metrix
                                              Total Unique Visitors (000)
                                             Dec-06    Dec-07     % Change
Total U.S. Internet Audience                174,199   183,619          5
Everyday Health                               2,690    12,073        349
Glam Media                                    7,994    25,028        213
OfficeMax                                     5,130    15,339        199
Demand Media                                  5,999    14,958        149
Yellow Book Network                           4,386    10,388        137
ValueClick Sites                              6,339    13,013        105
Facebook.com                                 19,105    34,658         81
WorldNow - ABC Owned Sites                    8,714    15,474         78
Craigslist.org                               14,075    24,468         74
Experian Interactive                          8,054    12,500         55
Yellowpages.com Network                      16,168    24,453         51
AmericanGreetings Property                   11,982    18,102         51
Comcast Corporation                          18,716    26,445         41
UGO                                           8,450    11,912         41
The Mozilla Organization                     10,948    15,267         39
Answers.com Sites                            10,707    14,899         39
Wikipedia Sites                              38,585    51,851         34
iVillage.com: The Womens Network             13,545    17,234         27
AT&T, Inc.                                   23,833    30,212         27
Internet Broadcasting Systems                 9,894    12,394         25

 *Ranking based on the top 100 properties in December 2007.

comScore also said that the “top-gaining site categories in 2007 reflected trends in both the online and offline worlds. The politics category grabbed the top position, gaining 35 percent, as the 2008 presidential election and primary season kicked into high gear. Women’s community sites also jumped 35 percent, as the top two properties in the category, Glam Media and iVillage.com, saw strong growth. With the ever-increasing coverage of celebrity news, from Britney Spears’ meltdowns to Anna Nicole Smith’s death, entertainment news sites jumped 32 percent. Online classifieds had a strong 2007 growing 31 percent versus year ago, as it continued to impinge on traditional news media’s classified revenues.”

comScore Top 10 Gaining Categories by Percentage Change in Unique
Visitors (U.S.)
December 2007 vs. December 2006
Total U.S. Home, Work and University Internet Users
Source: comScore Media Metrix
                                             Total Unique Visitors (000)
                                            Dec-06      Dec-07    % Change
Total U.S. Internet Audience               174,199     183,619         5
Politics                                     6,192       8,384        35
Community - Women                           51,632      69,854        35
Entertainment - News                        37,093      49,023        32
Classifieds                                 31,867      41,688        31
Career - Training and Education              7,865      10,279        31
Gay/Lesbian                                  1,843       2,367        28
Retail - Consumer Goods                     28,829      35,936        25
Finance - News/Research                     43,317      52,064        20
Teens                                       23,313      27,979        20
Religion                                    19,101      22,886        20

In 2007, searches at the five major core search engines increased 15 percent to 9.6 billion searches. Google Sites led with 5.6 billion searches in December 2007, up more than 30 percent from the previous year. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 2.2 billion searches, followed by Microsoft Sites (940 million), Time Warner Network (442 million), and Ask Network (415 million).

comScore Core Search Report*
December 2007 vs. December 2006
Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
Source: comScore qSearch 2.0
                                            Search Queries (MM)
                                                                 Percent
                                                                  Change
                                                                  Dec-07 vs.
Core Search Entity                   Dec-06       Dec-07          Dec-06
Total Core Search                     8,348        9,636            15 %
Google Sites                          4,317        5,629            30 %
Yahoo! Sites                          2,300        2,211            -4 %
Microsoft Sites                         871          940             8 %
Time Warner Network                     465          442            -5 %
Ask Network                             396          415             5 %

* Based on the five major search engines including partner searches and cross-channel searches. Searches for mapping, local directory, and user-generated video sites that are not on the core domain of the five search engines are not included in the core search numbers.

More than 113 billion core searches were conducted in the U.S. during all of 2007, with Google Sites accounting for nearly 64 billion, representing a 56 percent share of the market.

Search Engine People also posted about the data, mentioning the CNN article.

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