According to recent data released by comScore Media Metrix, it seems that (as expected), last month saw Web users turning their attention to two of the sexiest online categories available: taxes and politics.
In January, 23.3 million unique visitors landed on tax-related sites, which was a 202% increase from December’s 7.7 million visitors. IRS.gov attracted 12.5 million of those visitors, while TaxACT attracted 5.8 million visitors.
Politics-related sites garnered an audience of 13.8 million visitors in January, a 65% rise from the 8.4 million visitors during the prior month. If elections were based on visitors to a candidate’s page, Barack Obama would be the clear winner. BarackObama.com attracted 2.2 million unique visitors, a whopping 429% increase from December. This growth seems to reflect his momentum during the recent stages of the primary season. HillaryClinton.com attracted 1.1 million visitors, which was a growth of 202%. MikeHuckabee.com (937,000 visitors), and JohnMcCain.com (596,000 visitors) followed behind.
Career Services and Development sites attracted an audience of 64.1 million, a 31% increase from the prior month. Real Estate (28%), Ground/Cruise (27%), Car Rental (26%), Retail – Computer Software (25%), Financial Information/Advice (24%), Hotels/Resorts (23%), and Online Travel Agents (23%) rounded out the top 10 list of gaining categories in January.
In terms of the top properties with the most unique visitors in January, Yahoo! Sites led the pack with 138 million visitors. Google Sites followed behind with 135 million visitors, while Microsoft Sites attracted 119 million visitors, and AOL LLC attracted 109 million visitors. There were more than 184 million unique visitors in the U.S. in January.
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