Australians visit an average of 2,772 Web pages monthly, according to Nielsen Online Ratings, which recently got the Interactive Advertising Bureau's endorsement as the preferred measure of counting Internet activity in the country.

Monthly, Aussies go online 69 times and spend an average of 69 hours, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Popular search engines and social networking sites top the list of Web sites visited by Australians, the first Nielsen Online Ratings released this week said. On top of the list is Google, followed by Facebook and Nineman, which is a Microsoft venture with Nine Entertainment Co.

Among wholly owned Australian Web sites, on top of the list was smh.com.au which is owned by Fairfax Media and the publishers also of the Herald.

Facebook was clearly ahead of the list when it comes to time spent. Aussies on the average spent seven hours and 23 minutes monthly reading newsfeeds, posting messages and chatting there.

Second-place eBay was far behind at just one hour and 43 minutes.

The importance of interactive advertising could be seen by the IAB's formation of a mobile advertising council to study mobile audience measures, ad standards, guidelines and best practices.

The council is composed of IAB members, representations of Australian Interactive Media Industry Association and the Media Federation of Australia.

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