Who Won, Who Lost As ComScore Shakes Up List Of Top U.S. Web Properties

ComScore’s list of the Top 50 U.S. Web Properties doesn’t usually change much from month to month, but the newest list is anything but usual. For the first time, comScore has combined desktop and mobile activity to develop its traffic estimates. As you might guess, there’s a lot of movement.

We’re talking about the August 2014 Top 50 Digital Properties list; the July 2014 list was called “Top Desktop Web Properties.” Google and Yahoo top both rankings, but after those top two there’s plenty of change.

Change In The Top 10

Microsoft was No. 3 back in July when the list was desktop-only, but it fell to No. 5 with mobile activity added in August. Facebook moves up from No. 4 to No. 3, and narrows the gap between it and Yahoo. If Facebook’s mobile traffic keeps growing, and Yahoo’s doesn’t keep up, Facebook could become No. 2 overall in the next several months.

Amazon stays at No. 6, and Apple moves up from No. 10 to No. 7.

Mode Media dropped out of the top 10, and is replaced by one of the big winners in comScore’s new methodology: Comcast NBC Universal, which jumped from 20th to No. 9.

Here’s the full chart for August, and then I’ll add some more commentary below:

Other Winners

Several social media sites came out very well in the new comScore chart:

• Twitter, up from 19 to 12
• Pinterest, up from 38 to 30
• WordPress.com, from unranked to 43

Pandora was also unranked in July, and lands at No. 17 in August. Vimeo went from unranked to No. 39.

ESPN, which has a strong mobile presence, moved up from No. 28 to No. 19, and Buzzfeed jumped from 49th to 26th. Another publisher, Gawker Media, moved up from No. 50 to No. 31.

Who Lost?

In addition to previously-mentioned Microsoft, some other notable sites dropping after comScore’s inclusion of mobile activity include:

• The Weather Company (parent company of The Weather Channel), which dropped from 11 to 18
• Ask Network, down from 17 to 27
• craigslist, which tumbled from 18 to 35
• Demand Media, down from 22 to 33
• Adobe Sites, down from 27 to 42
• YP Sites, which dropped from 30 to 37 (not good news for a company whose strength should be mobile)
• Dropbox, which dropped off the list from being No. 31 in July
• Tumblr, which was No. 42 but isn’t listed now