Online Health Information Category Grows 12 Percent in Q1 2007 Versus Last Year to More Than 55 Million Visitors Per Month

RESTON, Va., May 21 /PRNewswire/ -- comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, today released the results of a study on consumer usage of online health information resources. During the first quarter of 2007, the health information category reached an average of 55.3 million monthly U.S. visitors (31 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience), an increase of 12 percent versus the same period last year. WebMD Health led the category with an average of 17.1 million unique visitors per month in Q1 2007 (up 25 percent), followed by NIH.gov with 9.8 million (up 8 percent), MSN Health with 8.1 million (up 1 percent), and Yahoo! Health with 6.7 million (up 83 percent).

  Top 10 Online Health Portals
  Q1 2007 vs. Q1 2006
  Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
  Source: comScore Media Metrix
                                    Average Monthly Unique Visitors (000)
                                                                  Percent
                  Property            Q1 2006       Q1 2007      Change
  Total U.S. Internet Population      169,728       176,195          4%
  Health - Information                 49,473        55,260         12%
  WebMD Health                         13,700        17,114         25%
  NIH.gov                               9,061         9,816          8%
  MSN Health                            7,951         8,068          1%
  Yahoo! Health                         3,642         6,671         83%
  Everyday Health                       4,135         6,421         55%
  About.com Health                      5,177         5,827         13%
  MayoClinic.com                        4,032         4,072          1%
  AOL Health                            2,070         3,659         77%
  Healthline.com                          725         2,674        269%
  QualityHealth.com                     1,206         2,586        114%

Several smaller players have also gained traction in the category during the past year. In Q1 2007, Healthline.com attracted an average of 2.7 million visitors, up 269 percent versus last year, while QualityHealth.com jumped 114 percent to 2.6 million visitors. Meanwhile, recent market entrant RevolutionHealth.com has seen its traffic more than double from 239,000 visitors in January to 486,000 visitors in March.

"While the larger and more established health portals are continuing to grow, the category is being shaken up by a few upstarts," said Carolina Petrini, vice president of pharmaceutical solutions at comScore. "In the past year, both Healthline.com and QualityHealth.com have more than doubled their respective online audiences to nearly 3 million visitors per month, becoming major players in the category. In addition, RevolutionHealth.com comes in with high expectations, so it will be interesting to monitor its ability to compete against the top sites."

Online Health Portals Users are Loyal to their Primary Site

Generally speaking, online health portals elicit a high degree of user loyalty, as evidenced by the low degree of cross-visitation that occurs within the category. Among the top health portals, MSN Health had the highest user loyalty with just 16.8 percent of its audience visiting other health portals, followed by Yahoo! Health (17.1 percent) and Healthline.com (20.0 percent).

  Overlap Amongst Top Health Portals
  Q1 2007
  Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
  Source: comScore
                                                Percent of Site
                                               Audience Visiting
                                               Any other Site in
                  Site                             Category
   MSN Health                                        16.8%
   Yahoo! Health                                     17.1%
   Healthline.com                                    20.0%
   NIH.gov                                           22.2%
   Everyday Health                                   22.2%
   QualityHealth.com                                 23.0%
   AOL Health                                        23.9%
   WebMD Health                                      28.5%
   About.com Health                                  33.7%
   MayoClinic.com                                    36.8%


  Health-Related Search Activity Drives Substantial Traffic

One of the key drivers of traffic to the online health information category is health-related search. Specifically, many consumers begin their navigation by first conducting a search using keywords or phrases for specific conditions or ailments. In Q1, the top health-related search keyword/phrase, "pregnancy," was entered more than 17 million times, followed by "cancer," "flu," and "fitness," each of which generated at least 15 million searches.

  Searches Conducted Using Major U.S. Search Engines
  Number of Searches Q1 2007
  Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations
  Source: comScore

         Keyword or Phrase                   Searches (MM)
  Pregnancy                                           17.5
  Cancer                                              15.3
  Flu                                                 15.3
  Fitness                                             15.0
  Cold                                                13.8
  Rash                                                12.6
  Nutrition                                            7.4
  Weight Loss                                          7.2
  Diabetes                                             4.9
  Depression                                           4.9


  About comScore

comScore, Inc. is a global leader in measuring the digital world. This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of more than 2 million consumers who have given comScore permission to confidentially capture their browsing and transaction behavior, including online and offline purchasing. comScore panelists also participate in survey research that captures and integrates their attitudes and intentions. Through its proprietary technology, comScore measures what matters across a broad spectrum of behavior and attitudes. comScore consultants apply this deep knowledge of customers and competitors to help clients design powerful marketing strategies and tactics that deliver superior ROI. comScore services are used by more than 700 clients, including global leaders such as AOL, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Verizon, Best Buy, The Newspaper Association of America, Tribune Interactive, ESPN, Fox Sports, Nestle, MBNA, Starcom USA, Universal McCann, the United States Postal Service, Merck and Expedia. For more information, please visit http://www.comscore.com/.