Despite the criticism, it placed first at the start of the May 2000 Nielsen ratings sweeps, surpassing "" among viewers aged 2–11 and 6–11. Retailers and businesses such as snack food company Jel Sert and toy store chain Toys "R" Us capitalized on the popularity of the series by licensing it for promotion with their own products. Web search engine Lycos listed "Digimon" as the number five fad of 2000, and it ranked 35th on the list of the year's top searches.