Nielsen: Google and Facebook Top Web Brands

Initial Nielsen results for its new "Total Internet Audience" metric, which looks to aggregate usage at home, work and elsewhere, shows Google led Facebook handily in unique users in July. Add Google with sibling YouTube and that figure is not far from doubling Facebook.

Facebook, however, topped other sites in the top 10 in time spent per person, with an average of five hours and 19 minutes, a figure Nielsen said is actually under-reported due to an alteration in data gathering.

The next closest was AOL Media Network at two hours and 18 minutes.

In unique users in July, Google sites clocked in with 172.5 million, followed by Facebook at 158.9 million. Yahoo was third with 148.6 million, while MSN/Windows/Bing was fourth at 131.1 million.

In fifth was Google-owned YouTube with 126 million.

Users of Google sites averaged an hour and a half, good for seventh among the top-10 most-trafficked sites. After Facebook and AOL, in first and second place in that metric, comes Yahoo at two hours and 14 minutes.

Perhaps showing users are mostly using it for short-form content, YouTube users averaged one hour and 39 minutes.

Among the sites, Wikipedia was eighth in unique users with 65 million, but 10th in time spent with a average of just 18 minutes.

The "Total Internet Audience" metric adds in site usage on digital platforms such as mobile devices and tablets.

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