MySpace more popular than Yahoo, Google

There are few who doubt the massive popularity of social networking website Myspace.com, but a new web traffic study released by a web analytics firm may surprise some: According to Hitwise, Myspace.com attracts more visitors than any other US website - and that would include calibers such as Yahoo, Google and MSN.

According to the Hitwise report, MySpace accounted for 4.46% of all Internet visits in the US for the week ending 8 July. MySpace is leading the pack for the first time and was able to surpass long-time leader Yahoo Mail, which Hitwise ranks second with a share of 4.42%. The Yahoo main site is third with a share of 4.25%, followed by Google with 3.89%, MySpace Mail with 2.85%, MSN Hotmail with 2.39% and MSN with 1.92%.

MySpace dominated the traffic on social networking sites last month as well. Hitwise said that the site accounted for 79.9% of the total market share of visits. Following MySpace, was Facebook which received 7.5% of visits, ranked third was Xanga with 3.8%. Yahoo! 360 and Bebo rounded out the top five sites with 1.1 and 0.98%, respectively.