Facebook overtakes Google

Facebook versus Google

Social networking website Facebook has overtaken internet search behemoth Google to become the most visited website in the United States for the week ending 13 March.

According to research firm Hitwise, Facebook.com now accounts for 7.07 percent of all American web traffic, while Google.com is the destination for 7.04 percent of traffic.

Facebook went from 200 million to 400 million users in the time between April 2009 and this February, growing much faster than Google and because this growth is expected to continue the gap between the two is likely to keep growing.

Although the two aren't in direct competition, the two are more or less out on their own in the fight for web space and internet users. What will alarm Google is that there may now be a website that can start to command higher prices for ad space.

Hot competition

The new stats mark the first time Facebook has been the most visited website across an entire week. The social networking site had previously usurped Google in the US on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 2009, as well as New Year's Day 2010 and the weekend of 6 and 7 March 2010.

As reported by UK newspaper the Telegraph, the figures for Google.com, however, do not include national versions of the search engine, such as Google.co.uk, or figures for other Google services such as email, maps and YouTube (fifth on the list of most visited).

What is even more important, however, is the data does not include searches that come direct from browser search bars or from other websites. That means that, in daily experience, American users are continuing to search the web via Google far more than they are using Facebook because search is increasingly integrated into other sites and programmes.

Yahoo Mail was third on the list of most visited in America, with a 2.14 percent share. Then came Yahoo itself, with Microsoft's Bing search facility in 10th position with 1.09 percent, behind Microsoft's MSN (seventh) and Windows Live Mail (eighth).

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