FORTUNE magazine released its America’s Most Admired Companies of 2008 list, and guess what? Google was not rated number one. Hard to believe? Well, they did make number four. Apple took the top position, which doesn’t surprise me since everyone I know is buying Macs, even oureditor-in-chief, Danny.

Google ranked at number four while Microsoft ranked at sixteen. Yahoo did not make the list.

Here are the top 20:

1. Apple
2. Berkshire Hathaway
3. General Electric
4. Google
5. Toyota Motor
6. Starbucks
7. FedEx
8. Procter & Gamble
9. Johnson & Johnson
10. Goldman Sachs Group
11. Target
12. Southwest Airlines
13. American Express
14. BMW
15. Costco Wholesale
16. Microsoft
17. United Parcel Service
18. Cisco Systems
19. 3M
20. Nordstrom

Hat tip to Gary Price for spotting this ranking.

Related Topics: Google: Critics | Google: Marketing | Stats: Popularity

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz