Top 20 U.S. Web Properties: Google Surges Past Yahoo

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Google sites had the largest audience of all Web properties in the United States during the last seven months of 2011, surpassing Yahoo and Microsoft sites, according to comScore Media Metrix.

A review of the monthly comScore reports shows that Yahoo sites ranked No. 1 from January through May 2011. And Microsoft sites fluctuated between No. 2 and No. 3 throughout the 2011 calendar year.

Of the top 20 U.S. Web properties for December 2011, two websites made big gains compared to December 2010: Amazon (up 26 percent) and Federated Media (up 85 percent). Three properties ranked in the top 20 during December 2010 saw their rankings dip 12 months later: Fox Interactive, Comcast, and Answers.com. 

Top 20 U.S. Properties, as of December 2011

December 2011 vs. December 2010
Source: comScore Media Metrix
Audience: All Persons Ages 2+ at U.S. home/work locations

Amazon's ascent came in a year when the e-commerce site released the Kindle Fire, a device that can access movies, TV shows, and music in addition to books, magazines, and newspapers.

At Federated Media, CEO Deanna Brown is aiming to make the company a top five media company in 2012. She said the company's acquisition of Foodbuzz and BigTent lifestyle properties contributed to the increase in 2011. "Unfortunately comScore does not measure/give us credit for the long tail sites that we work with as a result of our late 2011 acquisition of Lijit Networks - which serves more than 125K publishers," she said in an email interview.