Google Creates A Record By Reaching 1 Billion Users In May 2011

May 2011 was special for Google as it saw more than one billion unique users visiting the Google sites, thus making it a part of the record books. This is according to the data released from Comscore which also shows that it is for the first time any company has drawn that many visitors to its website in one month. The site saw its greatest numbers from India and South Africa which accounted for 14.3% and 13.5 % of its visitors, respectively.

The Comscore data also present the growth statistics of relevant sites from May 2010. Over the past year, the number of unique visitors to Google sites rose by 8.4% to just over a billion. During the same period, Microsoft sites rose by 15% to maintain its second position with 905 million visitors in May 2011. Facebook took third place with 714 million visitors, up 30% since a year ago while Yahoo was placed fourth with 689 million visitors, a 10.8% gain from a year earlier. ComScore’s estimates are based on a panel of 2 million Internet users. It refines the estimates with “page view” data that it receives from more than 90 of the 100 publishers of Web content, though excluding Google.

As marketers are gradually shifting from Search advertising to graphical, interactive video ads, number of unique visitors and average time spent by users on a website have become extremely vital metrics for them. Though Google dominates the search advertising, Facebook has a distinct advantage in the other category. In the month of May, the users spent 250 billion minutes on Facebook, a 66.6% increase over the last year. Users spent 204 billion minutes on Microsoft sites, a 13.6% decline over the last year numbers whereas 200 billion minutes on Google sites, up 13% from a year earlier.  Google, aware of the fact is also trying hard to bolster its presence in graphical and video ads segment. Earlier this month, the search giant reached a deal to buy online ad company Admeld Inc at an undisclosed amount.