According to the San Francisco Chronicle and comScore, Google has taken the lead against Microsoft as the world’s most visited Internet property.
Beating out Microsoft by just over one million users, Gogogle recorded 528 million unique visitors in March while Microsoft enjoyed 527 million uniques during the same month.
Reasons for Google’s leap frogging of Microsoft include:
- Their acquisition of YouTube boosting unique visits
- Google’s european popularity
- Sluggish Microsoft growth
More from Verne Kopytoff at the SF Chronicle (who also notes that time spent on Google properties is quite low):
ComScore’s estimates are based on tracking 2 million Internet users across the globe, from home and work (but not from Internet cafes or schools). Only users 15 and older are factored into calculations.
“Unique” visitors are a key measurement in the Internet industry, showing how many individuals visited a particular Web site in a given month. Users are counted only once, even those who may visit a site multiple times during the period.
Unique users, however, isn’t the only statistic that matters online. For example, Google still trails in the amount of time global users spend on its properties: an average of 4.6 minutes compared to 12.8 minutes on Microsoft.
