Big Feet

E-retailers are big gainers in web site traffic this summer in new ratings for July just out from by Media Metrix, and footwear retail sitesÊare the biggest. Footgear sites had the highest increase in unique visitors from the previous month, with traffic more than doubling from more than half a million visitors in June to 1.3 million visitors in July. The number of unique visitors to retail food sites increased by one third, from just over 4 million in June to more than 5.5 million in July. The big surprise? Online furniture stores, a category beset by recent closings and corporate layoffs, was the third top-gaining category as measured by traffic, with unique visitors increasing by 30% from 1.5 million in June to more than 2 million in July. No surprise? Portal-owned sites belonging to AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo continue to attract the most visitors.