Twitter comScore Ranking Plunges As iOS Syndicated Traffic Excluded

In comScore’s August “Top 50 Multi-Platform Properties” rankings Twitter came in at number 12. In September it dropped to number 20.

Seemingly, in one month, the company suffered a loss of roughly 36 million unique users in the U.S. Anticipating questions over this precipitous decline, comScore published a footnote to the new Twitter ranking:

Beginning with September 2014 data, iPhone and iPad browser only measures for Twitter.com no longer include traffic to syndicated content served off-site. Due to a content implementation change by Twitter, comScore is now able to identify and exclude iOS traffic to syndicated Twitter feeds from Media Metrix Multi-Platform reporting.

We asked Twitter for a statement. However, the company declined to offer a comment.

In an emailed statement, comScore clarified that it was “previously including traffic for certain off-site syndicated content that should not have been included, so when we were able to properly filter that traffic it resulted in an inorganic decline from August to September data.”

The metrics firm added that an “embedded Twitter stream” is the kind of traffic that’s now being detected and excluded from Twitter’s organic rankings.