Earlier this week, Experian Hitwise released its annual list of the most-visited Web sites of 2011; unsurprisingly Facebook topped the list, surpassing Google. Just a few days after that Nielsen Research came out with its own analysis and released its own list of the 10 most-visited Web sites, putting Google on top.

The data presented by Nielsen was based on a study of work and home computer browsing habits. The study covered the period Jan. 1 to Oct. 31. According to the study, an average of 153,441,000 people visited Google every month during the time frame, while Facebook - in second place - welcomed 37,644,000 people every month.

Facebook was followed by Yahoo with 130,121,000 unique visitors per month, while Microsoft-owned sites MSN, Bing and Windows Live tied for fourth with 115,890,000 unique views. YouTube stood fifth with 106,692,000.

The complete list of the 10 most-visited U.S.-based Web sites of 2011, according to Nielsen Research, goes like this:

Although Google topped the chart, it is not a complete victory for the search engine giant. Nielsen Research also evaluated social network visitation, in which Facebook emerged to the winner.

With an average of 137,644,000 monthly unique visits Facebook ruled the roost. Blogger came in a miserably poor second, with 45,712 unique visitors per month. It was interesting to see that Google+ was way down in eight with 8,207 unique htis a month. However, given the service was started only in June, it's indeed a sturdy growth. Below is the full list of the top 10 U.S. social network Web sites and blogs:

Nielsen also reviewed the top online destinations for videos - YouTube lead the chart with 111,152 unique visits per month. Here is the complete list:

According to Nielsen, Apple was the top smartphone manufacturer and Android the leading operating system. Apple topped the list of the top five smartphone manufacturers with 29 percent of the market share, while HTC came second with 21 percent of the market share. Other players on the list were RIM Blackberry (17 percent), Samsung (11 percent) and Motorola (11 percent).

Facebook Microsoft Smartphone Samsung