Facebook has done it again. And for the first time in its history, the social networking site has attracted more visitors in the US than Google.com, for a whole week.
This is the longest time Facebook has managed to hang onto the number one US most-visited-website spot. Previously, the site had been most popular on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, New Year’s Day, and during the weekend of 6 and 7 March.
Web analytics company, Hitwise has reported on the incredible growth of Facebook, which is now the most visited website in the States. According to Hitwise, Facebook’s market share of hits last week increased by 185% compared to the same week in 2009 – whereas Google.com only saw visitor numbers rise by 9% during the same two dates.
The home pages of Facebook and Google attracted 7.07% and 7.03% traffic respectively. And the combined site visits equated to 14% of all US internet hits last week.
As well as chatting, updating statuses and uploading photos, Facebook is becoming more and more popular for playing social games. Of the 400 million regular users that the site has around the world, approximately half of these users interact daily including via the social games like FarmVille.
Social networking sites, generally, are increasing in popularity. And Google is only too aware of this, launching its own networking site within Gmail in February in the shape of Google Buzz. However, Google Buzz has not had the best start due to concerns about privacy.
Some good news for Google, though, is that Facebook is still struggling to compete with the internet giant in the UK – Facebook only had a smidge over 6% of visits compared to Google.co.uk which had more than 9%.
And theUS Hitwise figures don’t take into account visits to other Google sites like Google Maps and YouTube. If these were considered, then Google is still number one with an 11.03% share of all US website hits last week.
To read more about this story, head to The Times Online.
Comments:
