Online consumers heart Google again and show some love for Facebook in Forrester report

Search leader Google again topped the list of consumers' favorite online brands, with Yahoo and Amazon behind it, according to Forrester Research online brand analysis published November 16.  

Facebook, offered for the first time to participants as a choice, finished as the fourth choice.

The top online brands share traditional attributes such as trustworthiness, helpfulness and relevance, according to Forrester.

Forty-four percent of online adults rated Google as their favorite this year, compared with 36% in 2007, the last time the survey was taken. Yahoo is cited as favorite by 27%, down from 32% in 2007, while MySpace dropped precipitously from 13% to 5%.

Facebook was not offered as a choice in the 2007 Forrester survey; this year it garnered 17% of recipients' votes. Rounding out the top 10 online favorite brand rankings are eBay, Microsoft, YouTube, MySpace, Apple and Sony.

The survey was fielded online in May to 4,823 US adults ages 18 to 88.