Forty-one percent of Americans visited food and cooking websites in November, up 2 million unique visitors from October, Nielsen says; 86 million consumers spent an average of 25 minutes using these websites

Nevin Barich

January 10, 2014 (press release) – Two-fifths of Americans (41%) visited food and cooking websites in November, up 2 million unique visitors from October, during the seasonal peak in activity for these sites. Scripps Networks’ websites, which includes Food Network and Food.com, were among the top online brands in the food and cooking category. Combined, these sites attracted 22 million unique visitors. Allrecipes was next on the menu, attracting 17 million unique visitors.

Some would-be-chefs may have needed a little extra help in the kitchen, turning to websites of food brands like Kraft (8 million unique visitors) and Pillsbury (5 million), or ordering dinner delivery via Pizza Hut (6 million).

Regardless of which food and cooking sites were visited, 86 million consumers spent an average of 25 minutes using these websites—just long enough to prepare or cook a meal.

As online consumers prepared for the holiday shopping season, most surfed to search, social, and shopping sites in November. During the month, Google was the most popular Web brand, attracting 161 million unique visitors to its websites. Amazon had the largest monthly increase among the top 10 sites, up 3 million unique visitors from October, while opening its doors to nearly 85 million consumers during the month that includes the Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping holidays. Looking at the overall online audience, 210 million Americans accessed the Internet in November 2013, spending more than 27 hours per person surfing the Web.

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