American web giants may lead the world in terms of sheer visitor numbers, but when it comes to keeping audiences engaged, their Asian peers leave them far behind.

A survey shows that in terms of average visits per user, Google and Microsoft trail NHN Corporation, the South Korean company whose online portfolio includes the Naver portal and search engine business.

While NHN’s number of unique users, 30 million, is dwarfed by Google’s 500 million, its users visited it an average of 33 times in February, compared with 24 times for Google, according to comScore, the market researcher.

The figures led NHN to be dubbed “the world’s most engaging site” by comScore, although it ranks only No 47 in terms of unique monthly users.

The new metric is likely to be watched closely by advertisers and publishers who are eager to gauge the “stickiness” of sites – how effectively they keep hold of their audiences.

Bob Ivins, managing director of comScore Europe, said: "The online advertising industry is maturing and all parties are now asking more serious questions about the effectiveness of the sites on which they advertise."

He added that "engagement metrics" could enable site owners with loyal users to command premium rates, "because of the frequency with which the target demographic might view an ad".

In second place in the rankings came TENCENT, the Hong Kong-listed Chinese internet group that runs the popular QQ instant messaging system, with an average of 31 visits per month per user.

It was followed by RISING.COM.CN, another Chinese portal, with 29 visits per user.

Google was the highest ranked Western site, in forth place.

Microsoft, the group that ranks highest in terms of unique internet users per month, with 507 million, was fifth, with each visitor taking a look an average of 22 times in February.

Of the three large internet groups, Yahoo! is the least engaging, in seventh place in the global rankings, with 21 visits per user per month.

Facebook, the social networking site, was a conspicuous entry at No 6 in the "stickiness" scale.

Though it has only 24 million users, they each visit 22 times a month, putting it ahead of competitors such as Bebo and MySpace.

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