The Nielsen Company today reported September 2009 data for the Top Parent Companies/Divisions and Top Web Brands, as well as average Internet usage.

While newspapers across the country face a declining number of subscribers, traffic to the top 10 online newspapers grew 16 percent in December 2008 versus a year ago, according to new research from Nielsen Online.
NYTimes.com continued to be the number one online newspaper, with 18.2 million unique visitors.  USATODAY.com and washingotnpost.com took maintained the number two and three ranks, respectively.

Site
Dec-07 (000)
Dec-08 (000)
% Change

Top 10 Online Newspapers
34,602
40,093
16

NYTimes.com
17,177
18,187
6

USATODAY.com
9,939
11,420
15

washingtonpost.com
8,478
9,470
12

LA Times
4,607
7,963
73

Wall Street Journal Online
5,409
7,235
34

Daily News Online Edition
2,956
5,883
99

Chicago Tribune
3,891
5,235
35

New York Post
2,851
4,557
60

Boston.com
4,364
4,086
-6

SFGate.com/SF Chronicle
2,785
3,503
26

Source: Nielsen Online (January 26, 2009)

“December was an extremely active month in terms …

Google was the top-ranked Web brand in October, drawing more than 122 million unique visitors during the month, Nielsen Online reported Wednesday.
Yahoo! and MSN/Windows Live rounded out the top three, with unique audiences of just over 116 million and 102 million visitors, respectively.

Rank
Top Web Brands
Unique Audience
(in 000s)
Time Per Person
(hh:mm:ss)

1
Google
122,325
1:23:07

2
Yahoo!
116,078
3:23:29

3
MSN/Windows Live
102,494
2:23:27

4
Microsoft
92,348
0:45:54

5
AOL Media Network
88,028
3:34:41

6
YouTube
77,480
0:53:25

7
Fox Interactive Media
67,182
1:37:12

8
Wikipedia
56,896
0:20:07

9
Apple
49,340
0:58:34

10
eBay
49,213
1:47:26

Source: The Nielsen Company (October 2008).

View the full press release.
View the top U.S. Web brands for September 2008.

Microsoft unseated longtime number two-ranked Web brand, Yahoo! in September, Nielsen Online reported Wednesday.
Last month, Microsoft drew almost 120.9 million unique visitors, while Yahoo! drew 116.7 million.
Google remained the top-ranked Web brand in September, with more than 127 million unique visitors, according to Nielsen.