Monster Continues Focus on Quality in Evaluating Site Traffic Success; Monster's Quality Site Traffic Sets All-Time Highs in March
In February, Monster adopted a new custom report prepared by Media Metrix to assist in better understanding the quality of site traffic in the Careers category. This custom report takes an alternative approach to the way Internet site traffic is measured, because it reports the quality of the traffic as determined by unique visitors who spend at least eight or more seconds on a site for a given month.
As a means of evaluating unique visitors, Media Metrix created a filter by which site visitors have to spend a certain amount of time on a site before being counted as a "filtered" unique visitor. This eight-second filter will present a valuable measure of site traffic by eliminating many pop-up windows and other traffic acquisition vehicles such as sweepstakes and promotional giveaways. A similar time measurement tool is used to audit television ratings, as a viewer must watch a minimum of five minutes of a program during one-quarter hour in order to be counted in the television ratings.
For the month of March, Monster reported a non-filtered number(1) of 15.4 million unique visitors (all-time high) and a filtered number(2) of 14.7 million unique visitors (all-time high). This represents a loss of only 715,000 unique visitors who visited the site less than eight seconds - a 95% quality traffic percentage. In contrast, Monster's closest competitor reported a non-filtered number of 7.5 million unique visitors and a filtered number of 5.1 million unique visitors. This represents a loss of 2,314,000 unique visitors who visited the site less than eight seconds - just a 69% quality traffic percentage.
"Monster and our customers define quality traffic as the visitor who comes to our site to utilize our leading career management tools, services, or recruiting products. The average Monster visitor spends an average of 23 minutes per month on our site posting resumes and viewing our job postings," said Steve Pogorzelski, president of Monster, North America. "It is our ultimate focus to provide the best value to every one of our customers. By measuring quality site traffic and showing how our job seekers visit Monster, we can assure our customers that their job postings are being viewed by top notch job seekers."
(1) Non-Filtered Number = unique visitors who spend less than eight seconds on a site for a given month. Source: Media Metrix, March 2002 custom report.
(2) Filtered Number = unique visitors who spend eight or more seconds on a site for a given month.
Source: Media Metrix, March 2002 custom report.
About Monster
Monster, headquartered in Maynard, Mass., is the leading global careers website, recording over 43 million unique visits during the month of March 2002 according to independent research conducted by I/PRO. Monster connects the most progressive companies with the most qualified career-minded individuals, offering innovative technology and superior services that give them more control over the recruiting process. The Monster global network consists of local content and language sites in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, France, Scotland, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Luxembourg, India, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, and Finland. Monster is the official online career management services sponsor of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games and 2002 and 2004 U.S. Olympic Teams. More information about Monster is available at www.monster.com or by calling 1-800-MONSTER.
About TMP Worldwide
Founded in 1967, TMP Worldwide Inc., with more than 11,000 employees in 32 countries, is the online recruitment leader, the world's largest Recruitment Advertising agency network, and one of the world's largest Executive Search and Executive Selection agencies. TMP Worldwide, headquartered in New York, is also the world's largest Yellow Pages advertising agency and a provider of direct marketing services. The company's clients include more than 90 of the Fortune 100 and more than 480 of the Fortune 500 companies. In June 2001, TMP Worldwide was added to the S&P 500 Index. More information about TMP Worldwide is available at www.tmp.com.
Special Note: Safe Harbor Statement Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Except for historical information contained herein, the statements made in this release constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such forward-looking statements involve certain risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding the company's strategic direction, prospects and future results. Certain factors, including factors outside of our control, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward- looking statements, including economic and other conditions in the markets in which we operate, risks associated with acquisitions, competition, seasonality and the other risks discussed in our Form 10-K and our other filings made with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which discussions are incorporated in this release by reference.
CONTACT:
Monster
Kevin Mullins
978-461-8751
kevin.mullins@monster.com
or
Weber Shandwick Worldwide
Kelly Sullivan
617-520-7239
ksullivan@webershandwick.com

















