Most Web surfers
would agree the maker of the X10 camera has the
most annoying ad campaign online today. Visit
any site and left behind, like trash at the
beach, is the camera's pop-up ad.
The campaign is
undoubtedly irritating, but it also appears to
be effective. In addition to generating groans
from cubicle dwellers across America, the X10's
has captured another honor: It's the
fourth-most-visited Web site in the country
according to Jupiter Media Metrix's June
rankings, which were released on Thursday.
X10.com drew 34
million unique visitors last month, amazingly
more visitors than Lycos, Excite, Amazon or
Lycos received. (See table below.) Jupiter Media
Metrix also reported that X10.com had risen to
No. 5 in May from the No. 14 online property in
April.
Other sites have
benefitted from pop-up and pop-under ad
campaigns, as well. Jupiter Media Metrix says
eBay's traffic increased 21 percent from May to
June thanks to a pop-up campaign by its commerce
site, Half.com. And approximately 1 million of
RealNetwork's June visitors came from a pop-up
campaign, which helped boost its audience 17
percent that month.
Counting traffic
from these pop-up or pop-under ad campaigns is
controversial because surfers don't actively
load the Web page the ad comes on. But Media
Metrix believes that the traffic counts because
the researcher must impartially measure all the
content that surfers see. The researcher has no
way of knowing whether the surfer wanted to
visit the site that popped up or not.
Competing ratings
service Nielsen NetRatings doesn't agree and
says it manually removes such traffic from its
reports. This places X10.com at a less-enviable
No. 116 in the firm's ratings.
As usage of these
new ad formats increases, it will be
increasingly difficult to identify and eliminate
pop-up traffic in Web ratings reports. The
resulting discrepancies between researcher
rankings will serve as another rallying cry for
industry critics who've been demanding standards
for Web audience measurement for years.
| TOP
U.S. ONLINE PROPERTIES -JUNE 2001 |
| JUPITER
MEDIA METRIX |
| Rank |
Online
Property |
Visitors* |
| 1 |
AOL
Time Warner Network |
72.5 |
| 2 |
Microsoft
Sites |
61.5 |
| 3 |
Yahoo! |
59.9 |
| 4 |
X10.com |
34.2 |
| 5 |
Terra-Lycos |
33.3 |
| 6 |
Excite
Network |
26.6 |
| 7 |
About/Primedia |
25.9 |
| 8 |
eBay |
23.3 |
| 9 |
Infospace
Infrastructure Svcs. |
21.0 |
| 10 |
Amazon |
20.0 |
| 11 |
Walt
Disney Internet Group |
19.3 |
| 12 |
CNET
Networks |
19.0 |
| 13 |
Vivendi-Universal
Sites |
15.6 |
| 14 |
Viacom
Online |
14.3 |
| 15 |
Real.com
Network |
14.2 |
| 16 |
AltaVista
Network |
14.1 |
| 17 |
Ask
Jeeves |
13.9 |
| 18 |
NBC
Internet Sites |
13.6 |
| 19 |
Google
Sites |
13.6 |
| 20 |
eUniverse
Network |
13.6 |
| 21 |
The
Weather Channel |
11.4 |
| 22 |
ATT
Web Sites |
10.8 |
| 23 |
Ticketmaster
Sites |
10.8 |
| 24 |
Gator
Network |
10.8 |
| 25 |
Napster
Digital |
10.5 |
| NIELSEN
NETRATINGS |
| Rank |
Online
Property |
Visitors* |
| 1 |
AOL
Time Warner |
76.9 |
| 2 |
Yahoo! |
68.1 |
| 3 |
MSN |
62.7 |
| 4 |
Microsoft |
39.4 |
| 5 |
Lycos
Network |
32.5 |
| 6 |
Excite@Home |
28.0 |
| 7 |
About
the Human Internet |
24.6 |
| 8 |
Amazon |
23.9 |
| 9 |
InfoSpace |
23.1 |
| 10 |
eBay |
22.3 |
| 11 |
Walt
Disney Internet Group |
22.0 |
| 12 |
CNET
Networks |
19.1 |
| 13 |
Vivendi
Universal |
19.0 |
| 14 |
eUniverse
Network |
16.6 |
| 15 |
Google |
14.7 |
| 16 |
ClassMates
Online |
14.6 |
| 17 |
Ask
Jeeves |
14.4 |
| 18 |
NBC
Internet |
14.3 |
| 19 |
GoTo.com |
14.2 |
| 20 |
ATT |
12.1 |
| 21 |
Real
Networks |
12.0 |
| 22 |
Weather
Channel |
11.8 |
| 23 |
Viacom
International |
11.7 |
| 24 |
CitySearch/Ticketmaster |
11.4 |
| 25 |
AltaVista |
10.3 |
| ...116 |
X10.com |
3.8 |
| *
Unique visitors in millions. Source:
Companies listed, July 2001 |
