Nearly 372.1 million unique visitors went online in Europe in August 2011 for an average of 25.4 hours per person, according to comScore.
In an overview of internet usage in Europe released by the digital market tracker, it is found that among the reportable markets, the UK showed the highest engagement with users spending an average of nearly 35 hours online in August, up 1.5 hours from the previous month.
ComScore said that Google Sites continued dominate in August with 337.7 million unique visitors (maintaining a 6% increase from a year ago), reaching 90.8% of the total European Internet audience.
While Microsoft Sites ranked second with 255.9 million visitors (68.8% reach), Facebook followed closely in third place with 245.3 million visitors (65.9% reach).
Facebook also showed a 10% growth in time spent per visitor from the previous month, as users spent an average of 348 minutes (5.8 hours) on the property. comScore said that Facebook also garnered the highest number of page views in August at 163.5 billion, representing 16.5% of all pages viewed in Europe. The average European visitor viewed 666 pages on Facebook during the month, slightly ahead of Russian social network VKontakte, which drew an average of 608 page views per visitor, added comScore.
VKontakte continued to display the highest average engagement among top properties, with Europeans spending 429.6 minutes (7.2 hours) on the site, said comScore.
Interest in entertainment sites surged in August.
comScore said that 345.8 million European unique visitors went to Entertainment properties in August, an increase of 10% from the previous year. On average, users spent 174.5 minutes (2.9 hours) on these sites, representing a 10% increase in average engagement. Among the top Entertainment subcategories, Movie sites showed the highest growth over the past year in visitation with an 18% increase.
YouTube drew the most visitors in the Entertainment category at 213.4 million, or more than 5 in 10 Europeans. YouTube.com also ranked first in engagement, with visitors spending more than 150.6 minutes (2.5 hours) on the site on average in August, according to comScore.
