Lycos Inc-owned or branded sites overtook Yahoo! sites in popularity for the first time last month according to figures from Media Metrix, an internet audience measurement company based in New York. Lycos property sites were visited by 31.9 million unique users in March, almost half the total internet users recorded by Media Metrix, while Yahoo visitors trailed by more than 600,000. AOL, the world’s largest internet service provider still held the lead with 47 million unique visits to its owned or branded sites.
Lycos welcomed the figures, saying they reflected the company’s significant recent success and will help it attract more users and advertising. Yahoo said the figures are only a one month snap-shot, and that they did not indicate a marked trend. Media Metrix said that site popularity figures tend to fluctuate, but said Yahoo had held the pole position among portals for some time.
Yahoo was still ahead of all other portals when it came to visits to its main web site, www.yahoo.com, with 31 million visits, compared to Lycos’ 16.1 million. The difference probably lies in the differing strategies employed by the two companies: Yahoo favours a single brand approach, while Lycos jointly develops many brands such as tripod.com and anglefire.com.
