Facebook Tops Google as Most-Visted Website: Report

It seems most people don't need Google to look up their favorite social networking web site. According to a recent report, Facebook has surpassed the search giant's main site as the most-visited web page in the United States for 2010.

The report comes courtesy of industry analysts at Experian Hitwise, which finds that in the past year Facebook eclipsed both Google and Yahoo in popularity. Of all visits to web sites made by American Internet users this past year (at least, between January and November), 8.9 per cent were associated with Facebook.

By comparison, 7.2 per cent of website visits were to Google's main page. (Source: reuters.com)

Social Networking Sites, Search Pages Dominate Rankings

Google has dominated these rankings for the past two years. However, in 2007 another social networking platform, MySpace.com, actually took top spot. And while that site has seen its popularity steadily whittled away by Facebook, it remains ranked number 7.

The finding is not surprising. Since it was first developed six years ago, Facebook has quickly become an Internet sensation, racking up an estimated half a billion users worldwide.

Facebook's growth over the previous year is staggering. "When combined, common search terms -- e.g., facebook and facebook.com -- for Facebook accounted for 3.48% of all searches in the U.S. among the top 50 terms, which represents a 207% increase versus 2009," Experian noted in its report, released last week. (Source: informationweek.com)

Numbers Slightly Deceiving

The numbers are a bit deceiving. After all, if one combines Google properties -- including YouTube and Gmail -- the search giant still claims a hold on Internet traffic, accounting for 9.9 per cent of all visitors between January and November of last year.

Yahoo also continues to do well. By combining all of its web domains, including its popular entertainment and web mail sites, Yahoo ranked third with 8.1 per cent of all visits.

Combined, the top ten web sites account for a staggering one-third of all Internet visits in the United States, showing that just a handful of web pages are dominating our time online.