Facebook overtakes Google

San Francisco: Facebook passed Google as the most visited website in the US in 2010, according to a survey by the web tracking firm Experian Hitwise.

The social networking site also claimed the top search term of the year, with variations on its name filling four of the 10 most popular searches, the survey found. In all, Facebook searches accounted for 3.48 per cent of all web searches in the US in 2010, a 207-per cent increase over 2009.

The study found that Facebook accounted for 8.93 per cent of all US website visits in the year, ahead of Google.com's 7.19 per cent and third-placed Yahoo Mail with 3.85 per cent.

However if all Google's various properties are taken into account, the web search giant did overtake Facebook with 9.85 per cent of all website visits. Microsoft's msn.com and bing.com also made it into the list of top ten websites, as did myspace.com.

Other terms in the top 10 searches included "youtube", "craigslist", "myspace", "ebay" and "yahoo".