Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos benefited from "an insane focus on the customer," according to a YouGov Brand Index spokesman. AP Photo/Reed Saxon According to more than one million interviews conducted by YouGov Brand Index, Amazon was the most highly regarded brand in the United States last year.

Google, which came in at No. 10 in 2012 and No. 4 in 2011, did not even rank. A YouGov BrandIndex representative told Business Insider that when Edward Snowden's NSA leaks shocked the world in June, "every major Internet company took a big perception nosedive."

Amazon was not among the companies mentioned in the scandal.

YouGov Brand Index said it conducted more than 1.2 million interviews in the United States last year for this study, with all respondents over the age of 18. The company's "Buzz Score" included in the following lists was calculated from answers to the question, "If you've heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news, or word of mouth, was it positive or negative?"

Here are the Top 10 Best Perceived Brands of 2013:

Amazon (31) Ford (30) Subway (29) History Channel (26) Lowe's (26) YouTube (25) Walgreen's (25) V8 (25) Cheerios (24) Kindle (24)

Amazon took the top spot from Subway, which held it for the previous two years. Target, always a "high flyer" in the charts, fell to No. 21 due to its major data breach in December.

"2013 was truly the year the public began to forgive the banking industry after being the poster boy for the 2008 economic meltdown," the YouGov Brand Index rep said. The four financial brands below are still negatively perceived, but faring much better than they were.

Here are the Top Brands That Made The Biggest Gains In Consumer Perception In 2013: