Google, Facebook and YouTube racked up the most unique visitors among U.S. websites in 2011, according to new data from the research group Nielsen.
Not necessarily the most surprising news is it? What may be a bit more interesting is that, despite its rapid growth, Google+ was on average visited by fewer users than Myspace this year, according to Nielsen. Google+ was released in beta in July and opened to the public in September.
The Nielsen data also doesn't cover the entire year, only January to October.
According to Nielsen, the top 10 U.S. social networks and blogs, by page views, in 2011 were:
1. Facebook -- 137.6 million average page views per month
2. Blogger -- 45.5 million average page views per month
3. Twitter.com -- 23.6 million average page views per month
4. WordPress.com -- 20.4 million average page views per month
5. Myspace.com -- 17.9 million average page views per month
6. LinkedIn -- 17 million average page views per month
7. Tumblr -- 10.9 million average page views per month
8. Google+ -- 8.2 million average page views per month
9. Yahoo! Pulse -- 8 million average page views per month
10. Six Apart/TypePad -- 7 million average page views per month
Nielsen also reported that the 10 most visited overall U.S. Web brands in 2011 were:
1. Google -- 153.4 million average page views per month
2. Facebook -- 137.6 million average page views per month
3. Yahoo! -- 130.1 million average page views per month
4. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing -- 115.9 million average page views per month
5. YouTube -- 106.7 million average page views per month
6. Microsoft -- 83.8 million average page views per month
7. AOL Media Network -- 74.6 million average page views per month
8. Wikipedia -- 62 million average page views per month
9. Apple -- 61.6 million average page views per month
10. Ask Search Network -- 60.5 million average page views per month
And finally, the top 10 U.S. Web brands for video, according to Nielsen's data:
1. YouTube -- 111.1 million average page views per month
2. Vevo -- 34.6 million average page views per month
3. Facebook -- 29.8 million average page views per month
4. Yahoo! -- 25.3 million average page views per month
5. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing -- 16.6 million average page views per month
6. AOL Media Network -- 13.3 million average page views per month
7. Hulu -- 13.1 million average page views per month
8. The CollegeHumor Network -- 12.5 million average page views per month
9. CNN Digital Network -- 8.3 million average page views per month
10. Netflix -- 7.4 million average page views per month