by MC Marketing Charts
Travel site categories accounted for 4 of the 10 top-gaining web categories by percentage change in January 2012, including Transactions sites, which grew 28% month-over-month to 3.7 million visitors, according to comScore Media Metrix data. Car Rental sites reached 6.2 million visitors during the month (up 22%), while Hotels/Resort sites attracted 33.2 million visitors in January, representing a 18% increase. Ground/Cruise sites (16%) also posted double-digit gains.
TravelPN.com ranked as the category leader among Transactions sites with 798,000 visitors, an 11% month-over-month increase. Viator.com came in second with 642,000 visitors (up 9%), followed by WWTE.com with 442,000 (up 86%) and OneTime.com with 278,000 (up 48%).
Within the Car Rental site category, Enterprise Rent-A-Car Company led with 3.2 million visitors, up 14%. Avis Budget Group ranked second with nearly 2 million visitors (up 19%), followed by Hertz with 1.3 million (up 21%), CarRentals.com with 793,000 (up 30%), and Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, Inc., with 790,000 (up 27%).
Meanwhile, Marriott secured the #1 position in the Hotels/Resorts category with 5.1 million visitors (up 30%), ahead of Disney Parks & Travel with 4.8 million (up 36%), Hilton Hotels with 4.6 million (up 25%) and Expedia Hotels with 3.3 million.
Americans Check Out Job Options Online
Career Services & Development site categories also performed well in January, accounting for 3 of the 10 top-gaining web categories. Traffic to Job Search sites rose 27% in January to reach 24.2 million visitors. Indeed.com Job Search was the category leader with 13.7 million visitors (up 33%), followed by CareerBuilder.com Job Search with 9.8 million (up 27%), Monster.com Job Search with 5 million (up 28%) and SimplyHired.com with 3.5 million (up 42%).
Training and Education sites also saw increased traffic, up 23% to 14.7 million visitors. LiveCareer.com led the category with 1.2 million visitors (up 58%), trailed by AesopOnline.com with 940,000 (up 44%), FastWeb.com with 736,000 (up 30%), and Learn4Good.com with 599,000.
Tax Sites Still Spiking
Tax sites ranked as the fastest-growing category, a position it also held in December. More than 30.7 million Americans visited a Tax site in January, up an impressive 357% after rising 29% a month earlier.
According to comScore data, total US internet audience inched down to 220.2 million from about 220.4 million in December.
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