Sports, School Interests Dominated Web Activity in September

Research firm comScore released a list of the top 50 Web sites for September and taking the lead spot was Google Sites with 165 million visitors, though Yahoo!, with 160 million, wasn't far behind. Coming in third was Microsoft Sites with 133 million visitors, AOL in fourth place with 100 million and social network leader Facebook holding onto fifth place with 95 million.

Also in the top 10 were eBay, Amazon and Ask Network.

Noting it was the back-to-school season, the report also stated that top interests on the Web were education and computing resources, which both saw increased activity. Education/information site traffic grew 15 percent, making it one of the fastest growing categories, according to the firm. The software category also grew nearly as much, 14 percent, attracting 34.4 million visitors in the month. Top leaders in that area were Intuit, Symantec and Wareseeker.com.

"As summer fades and fall begins, Americans’ [sic] shift their focus back to school and take comfort in their TVs as season premieres and fall sports dominate the tube," said Jack Flanagan, comScore executive vice president, as stated in the release on the findings. "With nearly half of the U.S. online population visiting television sites in September, it is clear that more than ever before Americans are turning to the Web for entertainment."

The football season debut and baseball playoffs clearly had fans logging onto the Internet in droves, with traffic numbers hitting an all-time high. More than 98 million visitors went surfing for sports information, a 14 percent jump over sport fan activity in August. Yahoo! Sports was the top landing place with 38 million visitors, an increase of 32 percent over the prior month.

Micro-blog sensation Twitter.com didn't do too shabbily, either, with 20 million visitors jumping on the site to tweet something to the masses last month.

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