Apple.com visitors up 21 percent this holiday season

According to data released this week by comScore Media Metrix, the iPod maker ranked No. 13 on a list of the Web's top 50 properties, catering to nearly 34 million surfers during the 30-day period.

For Apple, that marks a more than 21 percent increase in its web reach from December 2005, the last time comScore released Web activity data for months during holiday shopping period.

In December 2005, Apple ranked No. 17 on the list, having served up web pages to just under 28 million visitors.

Yahoo-, Time Warner-, Microsoft-, Google- and eBay-owned websites comprised last month's list of the top five most popular Web properties. They were followed by sites owned by Fox Interactive Media, Ask, Amazon, Wal-Mart, and the New York Times.

Just above Apple, ranking eleventh and twelfth respectively, were Viacom Digital and Wikipedia sites.

YouTube, one of this year's industry headliners, placed behind Apple at No. 18, reaching just shy of 25.5 million visitors last month.