The easiest way to check website performances compared to others is through Alexa Rank- Its reliable, up to date and pretty accurate. However, to examine all web brand properties is more complicated. Many web brands own many websites and Alexa only ranked singular websites.

To investigate this issue, i found two reports from two of the biggest research companies online: Nielsen and comScore. Let’s review both of the reports to discover who are the top web brand properties in the U.S. today.

The Nielsen Report

Nielsen found that 216 million people from the U.S. were active online this August, an increase of 1.2% from last month. Each person visited 99 different domains during about 30 hours on average. Nielsen is separating between few same web brand properties for some reason (Google and YouTube for example), so i will try to make some order:

Google sites are the most visited web brand by far (including YouTube which is number 5). If we combine MSN/WindowsLive/Bing (4) and Microsoft (6) we will find out that Microsoft sites are second. Facebook (the only social network on the top 10 list) is third, Yahoo sites are fourth and the AOL network of sites and blogs are fifth.

The comScore Report

The comScore report shows similar total audience findings in August to the Nielsen report with also 216 million people from the U.S. active online. But when breaking it down to web brand properties, it shows slightly a different picture:

Google sites are taking the lead here also, however, Yahoo sites are second, just a little before Microsoft sites which are third. Facebook is fourth and far away are standing (strongly) AOL sites and blogs at the fifth position.

The Verdict

Google is the top web brand while Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook are battling for the 2-4 positions. AOL is standing strong fifth, but far behind the leading four. Not surprisingly, the top 5 web brands are also the top ad-selling revenue companies on the web (traffic equals money).