MySpace top of brand search and traffic rankings

U.S. traffic to social networking sites rose 11.5 percent from January 2007 through February, 2007, according to recent Hitwise research. During February alone it accounted for 6.5 percent of all U.S. internet traffic. MySpace had the major share of that traffic.

With 80.7 percent of U.S. visitor market share, MySpace towers over its nearest rival, Facebook. Meanwhile, the pre-MySpace top ranking site, Friendster, is down to 13th place with 0.34 percent. With the exception of third place Bebo, with 1.18 percent, all the other top 20 social networking sites share under 1 percent of the U.S. social marketing traffic.

MySpace also tops the rankings of most searched for brand during 2006. Hitwise’s results were based on a 52-week average of industry search terms, excluding porn, and on a sample of 10 million U.S. internet users.

It is interesting to note that only three real-world brands appeared on the list – Wal-Mart, Target and Bank of America.

Tags: Bebo, Friendster, Hitwise, MySpace, search, web traffic