According to Nielsen, Google remained the top Web brand in February. However, a certain book of faces usurped the search giant in terms of traffic last week, according to Experian Hitwise.
In February, Google was the top Web brand, as it claimed 153.8 million unique visitors, up 0.5 percent from the previous month. Each visitor spent an average of 1:11:42 (hh:mm:ss) on its sites, down 17 percent from the previous month.
Yahoo! was second with 134.1 million unique visitors, down 2.4 percent from January. Each spent 2:18:35 on its sites, down 7 percent.
Facebook overtook MSN/Windows Live/Bing to take the third spot in February, as it boasted 118.8 million unique visitors, up 2.1 percent. Each spent an average of 6:27:43 on its sites, down 8.1 percent from the previous month.
MSN/Windows Live/Bing had 118.1 million unique visitors in February, with each spending 1:40:11 on its sites during the month.
YouTube (98.7 million visitors, 0:57:23), Microsoft (96.4 million, 0:38:46), AOL Media Network (86.0 million, 1:56:56), Wikipedia (67.0 million, 0:13:50), Apple (64.3 million, 1:12:11) and Fox Interactive Media (59.6 million, 1:04:01) rounded out the top 10 Web brands.
“The brand level is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs that has a consistent collection of branded content,” according to Nielsen.
Google was also the top parent company/division in February, followed by Microsoft, Yahoo!, Facebook and AOL LLC.
News Corp. Online, InterActiveCorp, eBay, Amazon and Wikimedia Foundation rounded out the top 10 list.
“The parent level is defined as a consolidation of multiple domains and URLs owned by a single company or division,” according to Nielsen.
Last week, Facebook actually claimed more Web traffic than Google, according to Experian Hitwise. According to the company, Facebook attracted 7.07 percent of all traffic in the U.S., while Google attracted 7.03 percent.
Sources:
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/nielsen-provides-topline-u-s-web-data-for-february-2010/
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-was-more-popular-in-the-us-than-google-last-week-2010-3
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