The 10 most popular web brands were the same in February 2011 as the month before. Not surprisingly, with February being a shorter month, the level of activity compared to January 2011 was slightly down.
Google remained the most popular destination for US web users from home and work computers with 148 million unique visitors. Of the ten most popular brands, Facebook led the way in terms of both total and average time spent by US visitors. Although AOL's network of websites had fewer US visitors compared to the month before, the average person actually spent 7.4 percent more time on the site compared to January despite the shorter month. Amongst audience size and average time for the ten most popular brands, this was the only increase in behavior from the longer previous month.
| Top 10 Web Brands for February 2011 (U.S., Home and Work) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Brand | Unique Audience (000) | Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss) | MOM % Change in UA | MOM % Change in Time PP |
| 1 | 147,916 | 1:15:50 | -6.7% | -6.4% | |
| 2 | 130,780 | 6:36:14 | -7.5% | -10.8% | |
| 3 | Yahoo! | 126,473 | 2:10:48 | -10.9% | -6.7% |
| 4 | MSN/WindowsLive/Bing | 114,708 | 1:19:19 | -3.6% | -8.5% |
| 5 | YouTube | 99,966 | 1:14:41 | -3.7% | -0.3% |
| 6 | Microsoft | 84,158 | 0:39:40 | -6.7% | -5.3% |
| 7 | AOL Media Network | 71,098 | 2:07:19 | -5.2% | 7.4% |
| 8 | Wikipedia | 59,959 | 0:15:24 | -8.8% | -0.7% |
| 9 | Apple | 58,536 | 1:10:21 | -3.3% | -10.7% |
| 10 | Ask Search Network | 58,346 | 0:10:08 | -3.8% | -5.0% |
| Source: The Nielsen Company Read as: During February 2011, 147.9 million unique U.S. people visited Google using PC/laptops from home and work locations | |||||
As January and February are busy months for the travel industry, as Americans plan their mid-winter getaways and trips ahead of Spring Break and summer vacations, Nielsen looked at the most popular travel websites. Map sites remain the most popular type of travel websites; Google Maps led the way with 67.3 million unique U.S. visitors in February 2011, followed by MapQuest (24.7 million) and Yahoo! Local (13.1 million). Despite the shorter month, both MapQuest and Yahoo! Local saw slight increases in the average time visitors spent on their site.
Map sites account for four of the ten most popular travel sites, while multi-category travel sites – led by Expedia – account for half of the top ten. Southwest Airlines, at sixth, is the sole airline represented in top ten during February 2011.
Multi-category travel sites TripAdvisor and Orbitz were the only other two among the top 10 to see an increase in the average amount of time (16.7% and 10.9%, respectively) visitors spent on the site compared to the longer January month.
| Top 10 Travel Sites for February 2011 (U.S., Home and Work) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Brand | Unique Audience (000) | Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss) | MOM % Change in UA | MOM % Change in Time PP |
| 1 | Google Maps | 67,906 | 0:05:52 | -3.2% | -6.80% |
| 2 | MapQuest | 24,739 | 0:05:40 | -11.4% | 0.6% |
| 3 | Yahoo! Local | 13,197 | 0:05:01 | -8.3% | 2.7% |
| 4 | Expedia | 11,407 | 0:10:04 | -8.6% | -0.50% |
| 5 | Southwest Airlines | 9,147 | 0:13:06 | -7.4% | -8.0% |
| 6 | TripAdvisor | 8,373 | 0:07:20 | -7.6% | 16.7% |
| 7 | Priceline Network | 8,238 | 0:09:45 | -1.3% | -9.0% |
| 8 | Bing Maps & Local | 7,860 | 0:03:59 | -13.9% | -18.40% |
| 9 | Orbitz Worldwide Network | 6,969 | 0:09:01 | -9.8% | 10.9% |
| 10 | Travelocity | 6,887 | 0:09:11 | -4.5% | -4.2% |
| Source: The Nielsen Company Read as: During February 2011, 67.9 million unique U.S. people visited Google Maps using PC/laptops from home and work locations. Note: The list above only includes consumer-facing website brands, and therefore does not include ad network groupings. | |||||
Finally, when looking at overall Internet usage, Almost 192.8 million Americans went online in February, down 2.6 percent from January. Not surprisignly due to the shorter month, U.S. consumers spent slightly less time online (-9.9%) and viewed fewer pages on average (-7.0%) compared to the month before.
| Average Internet Usage for February 2011 (U.S., Home & Work) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Metrics | Current Month | Previous Month | % Change | |
| Sessions/Visits per Person | 54 |
| -8.4% | |
| Domains Visited per Person | 91 | 99 | -8.1% | |
| Web Page Views per Person | 2556 | 2,750 | -7.0% | |
| PC Time per Person | 55:22:22 | 61:27:19 | -9.9% | |
| Duration of a Web Page viewed | 0:00:57 |
| -1.7% | |
| Active Digital Media Universe | 192,776,202 | 197,842,270 | -2.6% | |
| Current Digital Media Universe Estimate | 242,956,000 | 242,999,000 | 0% | |
| Source: The Nielsen Company Read as: During February 2011, 192.7 million U.S. consumers went online from Home and Work computers. | ||||
