If you look at the list of the highest volume search terms sending traffic to all sites shown in Bill’s recent post, you may be suprised to see that ‘myspace layouts’ is the 9th highest volume search term sending visits to all sites. How can MySpace layouts be so popular? Hitwise Industry clickstream can provide clues into this phenonmenon, and also help advertisers interested in reaching MySpace users find additional advertising opportunities.
One of the leading downstream categories for MySpace is the Hitwise category called Computers & Internet – Web Development, which accounted for 5.5% of MySpace’s downstream for the week ending July 22, 2006. Sites in this category, like Free Web Layouts and Blogthings, allow MySpace users to improve their MySpace pages by providing HTML code, graphics, and quizzes. Like MySpace, most of these sites make money by selling advertising. That fact that Web Development sites figure so prominently in MySpace’s downstream shows just how engaged MySpace users are in enhancing their profiles.
What’s most interesting about the Web Development category is that it is dominated by these MySpace downstream sites, and its growth has occurred at the same rate as the growth of MySpace: In the past 6 months, the market share of visits to MySpace increased by 60%, and the market share of visits to the Web Development category increased by 57%. Take a look at the two charts below: the first one shows the top 10 Web Development sites in MySpace’s downstream, while the second one shows rankings for the top 10 sites in the Web Development category. The lists are almost identical, with the exception of one site.


This information demonstrates not only the sheer size of MySpace, through its ability to impact an entire category, but also the value of clickstream data in searching out advertising opportunities. These sites may have a much lower CPM than MySpace, but attract the same users, thus driving value for advertisers.