During January 2004, the total U.S. Internet population was 152.4 million users, who spent an average of 28.9 hours online, up 5% from December. Tax, political, diet and travel sites ranked highest among the top sites.
The new rankings reflect the beginning of tax season, the Democratic primaries and the end of the December holiday season. Tax sites pulled 166% more visits than December, and 9% more visitors than in January 2003. Frequently surfed sites include IRS.gov and HRBlock.com.
Political sites alone drew 14 million visitors, a 76% increase from the month before. Campaign sites of nearly all major candidates contributed to the uptick, along with AOL’s ElectionGuide04.com. Former Democratic field leader Howard Dean started the month strong, ultimately racking up 729,000 unique visitors to DeanforAmerica.com, followed by JohnKerry.com (496,000 visitors), Clark04.com (403,000 visitors) and JohnEdwards2004.com (298,000 visitors).
Health sites saw a boomlet in January as well, with Americans wishing to take off holiday pounds or launch New Year resolutions driving visits to Web pages within this category up by 19%. Ediets.com drew 7.9 million visitors, and MensHealth.com, Weight Watchers International and Atkins.com also saw growth.
The top 10 sites, according to unique visitors, were:
1 Yahoo! Sites 110.9 million
2 MSN-Microsoft Sites 109.1 million
3 Time Warner Network 107.9 million
4 eBay 72.6 million
5 Google Sites 60.5 million
6 Terra Lycos 48.3 million
7 About/Primedia 41.4 million
8 Amazon Sites 38.2 million
9 Viacom Online 26.5 million
10 The Weather Channel 24.7 million
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