Yahoo beats Google in US web traffic

Company receives more visitors than rival for first time in over two years

Yahoo has scored higher web traffic to its portfolio of sites and services than Google, for the first time since May 2011.

According to analytics company ComScore, Yahoo attracted 196.6 million unique visitors to its pages in July 2013, a 21 per cent rise compared to the same time last year, and more than four million more hits than Google, which scored 192.3 million.

The figures don't stretch to Tumblr - the blogging and social network site that Yahoo acquired in May for $1.1bn - which attracted a further 38.4 million visitors.

However, mobile traffic is not included, which could quite easily tip the balance decisively in favour of Google.

Whatever the precise details, though, such a record can only be encouraging news for Yahoo, which is still struggling to monetise its services since CEO Marissa Mayer joined the company in July 2012.

She has since set about revitalising the company, including several acquisitions of products and services, as well as redesigning and refreshing moribund services, such as photo-sharing website Flickr.

Yahoo saw an 11 per cent drop in its second quarter advertising revenues, pulling in $423m, but still saw its net income for the same quarter rise 46 per cent to $331m. The profit was largely based on the company's investment holdings, however.

Microsoft came third in ComScore's ‘most hit' list, netting 179.6 million unique visitors, followed by Facebook on 142.3 million. AOL, once the world's biggest internet service provider, managed to grab fifth place, with 117.4 million visits.