Lake Forest, IL - boats.com has announced its manufacturers' rankings for January based on the most popular consumer searches by brands, new and pre-owned, on boats.com the marine industry's number one online marketplace.

"Understanding the methodology used to arrive at these numbers is crucial to their acceptance as reliable indicators" said, Paul Rabe, President, CEO and co-founder, boats.com Inc. "The new boat brands below are our NetAccess partners and reflect where a consumer has gone in our site to specifically search for a brand. It is much more reflective of real consumer interest than just reporting general searches which may bring up multiple brands and not report what consumers are truly interested in."

The boats.com Top 20 list is published monthly and reflects traffic data on all manufacturers and models available on boats.com Inc.'s Net Access Program.

NetAccess is a program used by boat builders to link dealers and their full product range information via zip code locators to potential buyers researching boat products utilizing the boats.com, Inc websites www.boats.com and www.yachtworld.com.

On the boats.com Power Top 20 List, New: Tracker moved into 1st place with Lund in 2nd while Lowe entered this months Top 20 in 3rd place. There are several other new entries this month, Nitro in the 7th spot, Sun Tracker in 12th, Ranger in 14th, plus Mako in 18th, Hurricane in 19th and Seaswirl in 20th.

On the boats.com Power Top 20 List, Pre-Owned: No change in the top seven places, Sea Ray 1st, Bayliner 2nd, Wellcraft 3rd, Carver 4th, Chris-Craft 5th with Boston Whaler in 6th and Grady White in 7th place.

On the boats.com Sailing Top 20 List, New: Jeanneau move up 3 places into 1st place with Laser moving into 2nd, Beneteau 3rd, X-Yachts 4th and American Sail rounding out the top 5 in 5th place. New entries include Dufour appearing on the list at 15th place. Cabo Rico at 16th, Solaris in 17th place, Catana in 18th, Peter Nicholls Steelboats at 19th and Voyage in 20th place are all new entries this month.

The boats.com Sailing Top 20 List, Pre-Owned: No change in the top five, Catalina retains first place, with Beneteau and Hunter in 2nd and 3rd respectively, Pearson in 4th and C&C in 5th place.

In its ongoing campaign to grow boating, boats.com properties are expanding at a market leading pace. Current and potential boat owners visiting the boats.com properties view more than 50 million pages of boat listings, specifications and content related to boating every month. Such traffic to the Internet's leading boating properties is helping the industry broaden the awareness of boat brands and manufacturers, as evidenced by the Top 20 Lists, and enabling customers to find dealers selling new and pre-owned boats.

Following are the complete boats.com Top 20 lists. boats.com will update these proprietary lists monthly thus providing the industry with a snapshot of what's hot in the consumer's mind. boats.com Affiliates, Manufacturers and Dealers can tap into additional consumer activity that is updated in real time and which will help to illustrate coming trends in the market place.

The boats.com Power Top 20 List: New illustrates the real time data representing searches for new boat information on specific boat brands.

boats.com Power Top 20 List: New

1. Tracker
2. Lund
3. Lowe
4. Fisher
5. Crestliner
6. Glastron
7. Nitro
8. Four Winns
9. Parker
10. Grady White
11. Tahoe
12. Sun Tracker
13. Wellcraft
14. Ranger
15. Larson
16. Azimut
17. Klamath
18. Mako
19. Hurricane
20. Seaswirl

The boats.com Top 20 Power List: Pre-Owned represents searches for pre-owned boat information and listings from dealers and brokers on specific boat brands. This data is driven by the presence of dealers and brokers in the market place.

boats.com Power Top 20 List: Pre-Owned

1. Sea Ray
2. Bayliner
3. Wellcraft
4. Carver
5. Chris-Craft
6. Boston Whaler
7. Grady White
8. Four Winns
9. Regal
10. Silverton
11. Baja
12. Maxum
13. Bertram
14. Chaparral
15. Lund
16. Larson
17. Mako
18. Hatteras
19. Tracker
20. Rinker

The boats.com Sailing Top 20 List: New illustrates real-time data representing searches for new boat information on specific boat brands. This data indicates that early participants in the boats.com website have already established a strong following.

boats.com Sailing Top 20 List: New

1. Jeanneau
2. Laser
3. Beneteau
4. X-Yachts
5. American Sail
6. Cornish Crabbers
7. Bavaria
8. Northshore
9. Oyster
10. Hunter
11. Corsair
12. Leopard
13. Lagoon
14. Island Packet
15. Dufour
16. Cabo Rico
17. Solaris
18. Catana
19. Peter Nichols Steelboats
20. Voyage

The boats.com Sailing Top 20 List: Pre-Owned represents searches for pre-owned boat information and listings from dealers and brokers on specific boat brands. This data is driven by the presence of dealers and brokers in the marketplace.

boats.com Power Top 20 List: Pre-Owned

1. Catalina
2. Hunter
3. Beneteau
4. Pearson
5. C&C
6. J Boats
7. CAL
8. Jeanneau
9. Morgan
10. O'Day
11. Columbia
12. Cheoy Lee
13. Irwin
14. Cape Dory
15. Ericson
16. Tartan
17. Islander
18. Bristol
19. Macgregor
20. Pacific Seacraft

Written by: James Nolan
James Nolan is a former General Manager of YachtWorld.com and Boats.com. He has managed a number of well known companies including Autohelm, Barlow and Navtec. He has his own PR/marketing agency and writes a monthly column for Boating Business in the U.K.