Internet giants Google and Microsoft have once again demonstrated their success in last month's Nielsen/NetRatings poll of the most popular websites in the US.According to figures published by the market research provider, while Microsoft proved the most popular company in the top ten parent companies list, Google led the top ten brands chart.
Microsoft managed to secure 118.06 million unique audience visits during August in the parent companies category, while Google clocked up an impressive 111.17 million unique visits in the top brands category.
The search engine Yahoo! was also successful, proving to be the second most visited brand, while AOL came top in terms of time spent per visitor, with users averaging four hours, nine minutes and 20 seconds.
Other companies that enjoyed popularity included Time Warner, eBay, YouTube, AOL Media Network, Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Foundation.
The poll also revealed the top advertisers over the period in terms of estimated spending, with Low Rate Source leading the way, spending approximately $51.6 million.
Nielsen/NetRatings delivers internet media and market research solutions. It specialises in internet audience measurement and online advertising information.
On the other side of the Atlantic, research published recently by Forrester indicated that European internet users are spending more time on line than watching television, with users dedicating an average of 14.3 hours a week to surfing the web.
This compared to 11.3 hours watching television and 4.4 hours reading newspapers and magazines.
The research group also stated that the annual value of European internet advertising is set to double its 2006 value by 2013.
