Yahoo beats Google in US traffic

For the first time in more than five years, Yahoo sites were the most visited in the country in July, according to a monthly report from ComScore, which tracks unique visitors to U.S. properties across the Web.

ComScore released its monthly report on the top 50 US Internet properties Wednesday, and it listed Yahoo at the top of the list in July with 196,564,000 unique visitors. Google, lagging behind slightly, had 192,251,000. Marketing Land noted that Google has been No. 1 since April 2008. While Yahoos numbers fluctuated, reaching the No. 2 or No. 3 position occasionally, but never making it to the top.

The improvement suggests that changes under chief executive Marissa Mayer, who was recruited from Google, are beginning to take effect with the online audience. Mayer has revamped the Yahoo! home page, as well as email and weather services. The Yahoo! audience total does not include traffic to its newly acquired blogging platform Tumblr, which came in as the 28th most popular site with 38 million visitors.

“No online media outlet would have come close to predicting this, and if they had, you would have said they were insane,” said Ed Barton, director of digital media at Strategy Analytics. “This will probably have a positive impact on the share price and if Yahoo! keeps this up, it has a chance of becoming relevant again.”

The ComScore report includes desktop traffic only. A more comprehensive report is due out next week. Though Google typically beats Yahoo handily in mobile traffic, Mayer has noted that Yahoo has seen a recent uptick in mobile. Since Mayer is in charge, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company has acquired more than a dozen start-ups, most notably Tumblr, and revamped a number of the sites.

“Hire and retain a great team, build inspiring products that will attract users and increased traffic, that traffic will increase advertiser interest and ultimately translate to revenue,” Mayer said on a call with analysts cited by Bloomberg. “People, then products, then traffic, then revenue.”