STATS: comScore Ranks the Top Japanese Web Sites for March 2008

Ed: USA brands are top exporters, but local brands are growing faster.

comScore Ranks the Top Japanese Web Sites for March 2008

End of School Year Prompts Visits to Travel and Entertainment Sites 
 
Yahoo! Sites Maintains Commanding Lead in Japanese Market  

TOKYO, JAPAN, May 7, 2008 comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its March 2008 rankings of the largest and fastest-growing Internet properties and site categories in Japan, based on datafrom the comScore World Metrix audience measurement service. With the past school year coming to a close in March, many people in Japan turned to the Web to prepare for the new school year and to research graduation celebrations and trips. Online gaming destinations Konami and NHN Corporation also experienced increases as spring vacation meant more time for online games.

“The end of the school year is a busy time for people in Japan, as many plan graduation celebrations or their spring breaks in March before returning to classes in April,” said Maru Sato, Managing Director of comScore Japan. “Travel sites such as Jalan.net and Mapion.co.jp saw traffic increase as people prepared for their vacations, while restaurant navigation destination Hotpepper.jp and entertainment destination site Walkerplus.com also experienced significant gains.”

Top 10 Gaining Properties by Number of Japanese Unique Visitors*  March 2008 vs. February 2008 Age 15+ Home and Work Locations**  Source: comScore World Metrix
Property	Total Unique Visitors (000)
	Feb-2008	Mar-2008	% Change
Total Internet : Total Audience	54,395	54,935	1
MAINICHI.JP	4,678	6,062	30
WALKERPLUS.COM	2,157	2,785	29
Konami	2,147	2,645	23
JALAN.NET	3,214	3,926	22
VEOH.COM	2,712	3,162	17
Adobe Sites	5,840	6,806	17
NHN Corporation	4,589	5,297	15
WITH2.NET	3,985	4,589	15
MAPION.CO.JP	4,997	5,751	15
HOTPEPPER.JP	2,631	3,023	15

*Ranking based on the top 100 Japanese properties in March 2008.

** Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

 

 

Top 10 Properties for March 2008

 

Top 10 Properties by Number of Japanese Unique Visitors*  March 2008 vs. February 2008 Age 15+ Home and Work Locations**  Source: comScore World Metrix
Mar-08 Rank	Feb-08  Rank	Property	Total Unique Visitors (000)      Mar-08
N/A	N/A	Total Internet : Total Audience	54,935
1	1	Yahoo! Sites	44,031
2	2	Google Sites	34,305
3	3	Rakuten Inc	29,344
4	4	Microsoft Sites	29,252
5	5	FC2 inc.	27,608
6	6	NTT Group	27,406
7	7	GMO Internet Group	25,225
8	8	Livedoor	22,740
9	9	Nifty Corporation	22,262
10	10	Wikipedia Sites	21,844

*Ranking based on the top 100 Japanese properties in March 2008.

** Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

 

About comScore 

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/boilerplate

Google Dominates Europe, but Eastern EU Sites Gain Share

from ClickZ News Blog

Today, ComScore released its March data on European search engine market share. Unsurprisingly Google sites came out on top, commanding 79 percent of searches across the continent. Yahoo and Microsoft came in fourth and fifth place, each with about 2 percent of search market share, respectively.

Worth noting however, is the increasing share for engines in the Eastern European markets, which are dominated by non-English language search technology.

Two Polish properties, Nasza-Klaska.pl and QCL Ricardo have shown considerable relative growth in comparison to ComScore's February figures. Nasza-Klaska.pl clocked up 1.3 percent of European searches in March, up from 1.1 percent in February. QCL Ricardo also increased to 1.2 percent in March.

In addition, Yandex, Russia's premier search facility trumped both Microsoft and Yahoo with its 2.2 percent share, slightly below the 2.3 percent it managed in February.

"With Russia's online population now the fastest growing in Europe, it is likely that some of these local search engines will continue to gain traction and market share," Jack Flanagan, EVP of comScore said in a statement.

NEWS: Web Metrics and Grains of Salt

By BRIAN STELTER 

Perhaps Internet metrics should come with a warning label: “handle with care.”

Stock in the measurement firm comScore slid in after-hours trading on Thursday after Google reported surprisingly strong first quarter earnings. Why the decline? Analysts were primed for a poor performance from Google after three straight months of comScore reports showing a slowdown in paid clicks on the Web giant’s sites...

Why ComScore’s Google Paid Click Estimates Are Not Predictive Of Google’s Revenues

from TechCrunch by Erick Schonfeld

After Google’s earnings call last week, Google’s stock jumped on strong results and comScore’s took a temporary hit. Many analysts and pundits were using comScore’s estimates of flattening paid-click advertising growth at Google to conclude that Google’s overall revenue growth would also be flat. Yet Google reported 42 percent year-over-year revenue growth, and 7 percent quarter-over-quarter revenue growth. In contrast, comscore had estimated 1.8 percent growth in U.S. paid clicks for the quarter.

Since Google gets a huge chunk of its revenues from search ads, there should be some correlation between a slowdown in paid-clicks and a slowdown in overall revenues. Yet as we first noted last February, historically the correlation between comScore’s U.S. paid-click estimates and Google’s actual quarterly results has been hit or miss. This time was no different. During the earnings conference call, CFO George Reyes addresses the paid-clicks issue directly by saying:

Now let’s look at aggregate paid clicks growth. Aggregate paid clicks include clicks related to ads served on Google properties, as well as ads served on our partner sites. Aggregate paid clicks grew approximately 20% over Q1 2007 and approximately 4% over Q4.

The Real Google-Comscore Scandal: Investors Who Won't Take Responsibility For Decisions

from Silicon Alley Insider by Henry Blodget

Will the screaming never end? As we reported on Friday, investors who lost money shorting Google (GOOG) into Thursday's conference call wasted no more than a nanosecond in scapegoating Comscore (SCOR). With global anger boiling over, the Wall Street Journal and New York Times pounced on the scandal over the weekend.

COMSCORE'S BOGUS, INACCURATE CLICK DATA COST INVESTORS MILLIONS!

It's a sexy story. If only it were true.

As we noted on Friday, Comscore's data about Google's US paid clicks:

1. Was not just directionally accurate, but close to being plain old accurate: Google's US clicks decelerated significantly in Q1. They almost certainly grew faster than the 2% Comscore reported, but it's unlikely they grew faster than, say, 9% (Remember: As we and many other analysts made clear throughout the quarter, US paid clicks are not the same as the 20% global click number Google reported on the call).
2. Prompted analysts to cut their estimates--which is the only reason Google exceeded consensus. In other words, by correctly identifying a trend in Google's US clicks, Comscore's data helped the market see Google's US deceleration earlier.

Ed: Complex metrics problem - comScore correctly reported decline in same store clicks. Wall Street monitors overall growth and overlooked click decline. International and search share growth will parallel USA same store results.

Google can hide the problem by growing Youtube video and DoubleClick banner revenues. So far, these results have been, as Google reports, inconsequential.

View	Google's Search and International Growth Hides Decline in Clicks

View NEWS: Cookie Deletion Inflates User Metrics 

View NEWS: New Study Shows that Heavy Clickers Distort Display Advertising Click-Through 

View ANALYSIS: Internet Consolidation or Fragmentation?

View	ANALYSIS: Who Earns the Page View?

April 21, 2008

Google AdSense Publishers Report: Clicks Not Being Counted

WebmasterWorld members are reporting that they're logging into their Google AdSense accounts and are finding that AdSense is reporting much lower clicks. One person in particular said that his ads are showing zero clicks but even had it clicked on by someone "overseas" to see if it was a problem on Google's end).

Everyone agrees that "something is weird" and only martinibuster suggests that you should check your server logs for an indication of what's happening with your ad clicks. Till then, though, on April 17th and on the 18th, this seemed to be a problem. (Ed note: As of this writing -- the 18th at 4PM EST -- this issue hasn't been resolved as no forum members report anything but strangeness.)