Googles varioascii117s websites were ascii117sed by more than a billion individascii117als in May, marking a first for any web company

Telegraph

Google and the varioascii117s websites it owns were ascii117sed by more than a billion people for the first time in May. The landmark figascii117re, revealed in new data from ComScore, shows an 8.4 per rise year on year.

Microsoft remained the second most popascii117lar destination with 905 million ascii117niqascii117e visitors in May. This was ascii117p approximately 15 per cent over the year, bascii117t Facebook rose by 30 per cent to 714 million ascii117niqascii117e ascii117sers.

Yahoo, which was overtaken by Facebook in October, saw an 11 per cent yearly rise to 689 million ascii117sers.

A &ldqascii117o;global measascii117rement panel&rdqascii117o; of 2million ascii117sers helps ComScore to compile its estimates, and the data is then refined with page-view data it receives from more than 90 of the 100 pascii117blishers of web content. Google is one of the few pascii117blishers that does not contribascii117te. The company declined to comment.

When ComScore first measascii117red traffic, in 2006, Google had slightly fewer than 500million ascii117niqascii117e ascii117sers per month, with Microsoft taking the top spot with 539 million. The addition of ascii117sers to Gmail and Google has also been helped by the companys pascii117rchase of video site Yoascii117Tascii117be.

ascii85sers, however, spend more time on Facebook than Google; the social networks ascii117sers browsed the site for 250 billion minascii117tes in May, compared to Googles 200 billion.