The most engaging Web sites in South Africa, based on average time per session, are dating and recruitment sites, according to Nielsen Online data, BizCommunity Africa reported.

“It's very interesting to see, particularly for advertisers, which online sectors tend to generate the longest visitor sessions. South African consumers are clearly very engaged when visiting job, dating or real estate sites. It's likely their intention is to achieve a particular objective in that visit as opposed to just being a casual look,” said Alex Burmaster, an analyst for Nielsen Online.

In fourth place, based on time spent, was blogging, which “highlights the increasingly important arena of consumer-generated media and how engaging person-to-person content is proving to be,” Burmaster said, according to BizCommunity Africa.

Average time per session (min:sec), according to Nielsen Online::

1. Employment: 12:47
2. Personals and dating: 9:36
3. Real estate: 9:09
4. Blogs: 8:22
5. Automotive: 8:02
6. General classifieds: 7:24
7. Education: 7:10
8. Mobile: 7:03
9. E-mail, messaging and chat: 6:13
10. Healthcare: 5:48