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July 2011 – Top US Web brands

2 minute read | September 2011

July 2011 marks the first month of Nielsen’s new “Total Internet Audience” metric, which incorporates hybrid audience measurement data to provide a holistic view of online audience activity. Google was the most visited website in the U.S. in July with 172 million unique US visitors. During July 2011, 7 of the Top 10 web brands retained the same rank, with Wikipedia and Apple switching places compared to previous months. Amazon had 70.4 million unique US visitors during the month, making their site the 10th ranked during the month.

Top 10 Web Brand for July 2011 (US, Total)
Rank Brand Total Internet Audience (000) Time per Person (hh:mm:ss)
1 Google 172,533 1:29:40
2 Facebook 158,913 5:18:40*
3 Yahoo! 148,590 2:14:25
4 MSN/WindowsLive/Bing 131,061 1:38:57
5 YouTube 125,978 1:39:02
6 Microsoft 94,680 0:45:30
7 AOL Media Network 90,181 2:17:46
8 Wikipedia 74,655 0:18:19
9 Apple 71,153 1:03:48
10 Amazon 70,388 0:29:48
Read as: During July 2011, 172.5 million unique U.S. people visited Google’s websites.

Source: Nielsen

* – Due to a change in the type of call used behind Facebook’s AJAX interface, Nielsen NetView data for Facebook duration will be underreported for June and July.

Hybrid data extends beyond Home and Work PCs, and as a result of these measurement enhancements and the additional sources measured, metrics including Unique Audience, which Nielsen uses to rank the top web brands, witnessed changes in data for July. Therefore July data can not be trended, but moving forward Total Internet Audience data can be trended with previous months’ Total Internet Audience data.

Hybrid measurement combines Nielsen’s online panel, a people-based representative sample employed to measure consumer’s Internet behavior using Home and Work computers, with tag-based data from websites to account for Internet use from any source. Thanks to this hybrid approach, Nielsen’s Total Internet Audience metric includes web browsing activity from all devices, including mobile devices, tablets, secondary PCs and access points outside of home and work locations.

Overall 213 million Americans were active on the Internet in July 2011 from all sources included in hybrid measurement. Internet access through home and work PCs continued to grow to 249 million individuals in the U.S. during July 2011.

Average U.S. Internet Usage for July 2011
Metrics Total
Sessions/Visits per Person 64
Domains Visited per Person 95
Web Page Views per Person 2,572
Duration of a Web Page viewed 00:01:06
Online Time per Person 27:14:48
# of People Who Went Online 213,253,000
# of People who had Internet access 275,465,750
Read as: 213 million Americans were active online during July 2011, from Total Internet Audience using all sources in the US.

Source: Nielsen

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