Facebook Surpasses Google as Spot Where Web Surfers Spend the Most Time

For the first time, social networking Website Facebook has ousted Google from its number-one position as the site where Web surfers in the U.S. spend most of their time, reports comScore Inc.

Google has long time been top dog when it comes to the most frequently-visited Website on the Internet. And that comes as no surprise. If you want to find pretty much anything online, Google has essentially become the verb that describes how you find it. But what makes Facebook's overtaking all the more compelling is the fact that the site surpassed Google even when you take all of the company's non-search engine properties into account. That includes the Gmail e-mail program, the Google news portal, and even YouTube.

According to comScore, Web surfers spent a total of 41.1 million minutes on Facebook last month, compared to 39.8 million minutes on Google properties. That represents 9.9% and 9.6%, respectively, of all their time spent on the ‘Net.

Granted, Facebook just managed to inch Google out of the top spot. But the fact that Facebook only has one property really sheds some light on the importance and impact of social networking.

Coming in third south of the border was Yahoo at 37.7 million; but Facebook had already surpassed Yahoo as of July 2010.

What's more, Facebook also appears to have grown significantly in popularity in the U.S. over the past year, or at least people are spending more time on the site. Last year in August, Web surfers spent less than 5% of their time on Facebook; ditto for Google, and a whopping 12% on Yahoo. Three years ago, Facebook's ranking was just 2% of total minutes, and Google less than 4% (Yahoo was still dominant at 12%.)

Would these figures be mirrored in Canada? Chances are that we may see a similar pattern here. Remember: Facebook was popular in spots like Canada and the U.K. before it really saw legs in the U.S. What's more, while comScore's study is worded to target just U.S. users, the panel of two-million users was acquired from around the world, and general data was taken from Web servers. So it's unclear why results are only attributed to the U.S.

The bottom line is that reading news feeds, updating statuses and profile information, interacting with friends, and posting and viewing photos, seems to be taking up a lot of Internet time. Consider that things like YouTube videos are compiled, shared, and viewed right through the Facebook portal, making it almost unnecessary to visit the dedicated YouTube.com site at all. With the new "Like" button that appears across several sites, Internet surfers can share interesting content directly to their group of "Friends" through Facebook, thus lessening the need to visit other aggregator sites like Google News. What's more, chances are that your group of "friends" will push the news that's relevant to you, since you're liable to have common interests. You can't get any more convenient than that.