Online traffic to a custom category of Black Friday advertising websites increased 87% for the week ended November 21, 2009, according to Experian Hitwise. Overall, visits to Black Friday websites increased 4% compared with the same week in 2008.
The growth in traffic to Black Friday websites results in referrals for shoppers to retailers' websites to learn about sales and promotions.
The percentage of referred traffic from Black Friday websites to the top 500 retail websites for the week ended Nov. 21 increased 12% compared with the previous week. The percentage of referred traffic increased 14% compared with the same week in 2008.
Wal-Mart received the greatest share of referred traffic from Black Friday websites last week with 13%, followed by Target (4.12%) and BestBuy (4.04%).
Top Websites Receiving Paid Traffic
The top websites receiving paid traffic from a portfolio of Black Friday search terms for the week ended Nov. 21 were Dealighted.com, Target, BlackFriday2009.com, Wal-Mart, and Bing Shopping.
The share of paid traffic for Black Friday websites was down 20% compared with the previous week but up 17% compared with the same week in 2008.
Top Visited Retail Websites
Overall visits to the top 500 retail websites increased 6% for the week ended Nov. 21, compared with the previous week. Among the week's most visited websites:
- Amazon led with 15.2% of visits.
- Wal-Mart (7.4%), Target (4.64%), Sears (2.64%) and BestBuy (2.36%) rounded out the top five.
- Fandango received the largest increase (42%) in visits week over week among the top 20 visited websites.
- Macy's received a 13% increase in visits, followed by Kohls (10%) among sites with the largest increases over the previous week.
