Big Financial Websites Lose Audience

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December was an woful month for financial websites. At least according to Comscore.  The unique visitors to big business web properties including MSN Money, Dow Jones sites, and AOL Finance fell very sharply. And the online properties at Forbes were decimated.

Yahoo! Finance and BusinessWeek online had healthy gains. Manta.com, which provides research on companies, credit histories, and customer data for businesses made a huge move up that list.

Total Unique Visitors (000)
Dec-05 Dec-06 % Change
Total Internet : Total Audience (US) 170,285 174,199 2
News/Research 42,923 43,317 1
MSN Money 11,174 9,760 -13
Yahoo! Finance 9,194 9,611 5
AOL Money & Finance 11,327 9,276 -18
Dow Jones & Company 6,657 5,254 -21
CNN Money 4,667 4,319 -7
Forbes Property 10,552 3,604 -66
Reuters Group 3,396 2,837 -16
Bankrate.com Sites 2,528 2,567 2
MANTA.COM 962 2,038 112
Business Week Online 1,787 1,976 11

Source: Comscore Media Metrix

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at douglasamcintyre@247wallst.com. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.