Google: The First Web Company To Hit 1 Billion Users

Google: 1 billion served, monthly.

Google has reached an unprecedented milestone as the world's first Internet company to claim over 1 billion unique users in a single month on its websites.

According to data from comScore (via the Wall Street Journal) during the month of May, Google-owned websites, including its search engine, email service Gmail, and video-sharing site YouTube, among others, notched more than a billion unique visitors, an 8.4 percent increase over the previous year.

Google boasts approximately 100 million more users than the next most popular company on the web, comScore reports. Microsoft's sites, with 905 million unique visitors, were the second most-visited destination on the Internet and Facebook came in third with 714 million users, up 30 percent from over the previous year.

Google's number of unique visitors has more than doubled in the past five years, from 496 million unique users in 2006, when comScore began measuring sites' unique visitors, to over 1 billion today.

Research by Hitwise, a firm providing online competitive intelligence, released in December 2010 found that while Facebook had topped Google.com as the most-visited website of the year among U.S. users, when the share of all Google-owned properties was taken together, Google could still claim a greater share of visits (9.85 percent to Facebook's 8.93 percent).

The Wall Street Journal explains comScore's methodology:

ComScore’s estimates are based on its “global measurement panel” of two million Internet users, similar to how Nielsen measures television ratings. ComScore refines the estimates with “page view” data that it receives from more than 90 of the 100 publishers of Web content, but not from Google.

How long do you predict it will take Google to reach 2 billion users? And when will Facebook hit 1 billion? Weigh in below, then check out our "Numbered" series featuring the week's must-see tech stats.

Comments

[obamasandiego]

04:20 PM on 06/23/2011

I sometimes google if there are others like me who think Sergey Brin is a cutie patootie.

[5pliff5tar]

03:05 PM on 06/23/2011

There's no better search engine than Google.

[Basselope]

11:02 AM on 06/23/2011

Probably a little closer to 250 million ACTUAL unique users, but still impressive.

[SickHippie]

02:41 PM on 06/23/2011

Ah yes, we'll take the real stats, cut the number by 75%, and call that reality instead.

Makes perfect sense.

[Basselope]

03:21 PM on 06/23/2011

It is an imperfect measurement. "Unique" user is based on unique IP/Mac. MOST users access websites from multiple IP addresses (home cpu, work cpu, laptop, phone, etc).

If you access google from work and then go home and access google and then go to store and access google from your phone and then take your laptop to the coffee shop and access google, you have now counted as 4 unique users for this calculation.

If you clear your cookies and powercycle your modem on a regular basis, you are potentially a unique user each day.

I, personally, account for about 100 "unique" users per month based on the way I access the internet and the locations I access from, even though I am just 1 person.

[wilray]

01:25 AM on 06/23/2011

Booyah!!

[tech21]

12:10 AM on 06/23/2011

asdasdasd

[tob221]

10:04 PM on 06/22/2011

The Doodle tomorrow should be gooooooooogle

[Chinmay]

06:47 PM on 06/22/2011

i use google for search, but yahoo for home page, if only google had a better home page.

[ogaraj]

01:07 AM on 06/23/2011

umm, you can personalize it so its completely up to you

[taatiita]

04:16 AM on 06/23/2011

Even with the personalization, yahoo still looks better as a homepage (no competition there)...just like google serves as a better search engine (no competition there either :)

[whoshooter]

04:09 PM on 06/23/2011

Yahoo! is right-wing GOP slanted. Just read their editorials. Google news is completely unbiased.

My wife and I make our living partnering with Google Adsense (ads by Google) We're up to $8000 a month now from Google Adsense revenue.

http://turnkeybizblog.com/

We sure hope Google will always be a leader in web search.

[Chinmay]

09:44 PM on 06/23/2011

i guess i do like google more, just gotten used to the look and just the look of the yahoo homepage alone so it makes me like their home page, however for everything else like translate, maps, directions, mail,i use Google.

[Ole15]

06:11 PM on 06/22/2011

I prefer Google over most other sites. It embraced Web 2.0, and I really like it!

[noob1]

02:33 PM on 06/22/2011

Who says they're the first, eh? Seen it b4 yo. Nice job ;P

[SickHippie]

02:43 PM on 06/23/2011

Uh huh - you've seen someplace else get over a billion unique visitors in a month?

Source or it didn't happen.

[Toni Vlaic]

01:50 PM on 06/22/2011

It's intresting that Facebook had 714 million with just one site compared to Googles and Microsofts many sites...

[Dnietz]

06:27 PM on 06/22/2011

Facebook is just one site?
Interesting parallax

[taatiita]

04:18 AM on 06/23/2011

I see the point you are trying to make but.......
Google is a SEARCH ENGINE while Facebook is a SOCIAL NETWORK!

[KarateKid]

01:42 PM on 06/22/2011

I've tried other search engines and map programs, but Google does those things better than, say, Bing or Bing Maps.

[Tanrioldu]

03:18 PM on 06/22/2011

bing blows

[Dnietz]

06:27 PM on 06/22/2011

totally

[Equinator]

03:42 PM on 06/22/2011

Bing almost never gives me what I am looking for on the first try. Google almost always does. Bing is not better than bling.

[PenguinLinux]

01:39 PM on 06/22/2011

Ronald McGoogled says...............

[Mike Porcaro]

11:19 PM on 06/22/2011

Evil Meal

[wonderYrednow]

03:31 AM on 06/23/2011

It's a steal.

[sj user1]

01:01 PM on 06/22/2011

Fixed: Google creates 500 Million bots that can use Google.

[leorangerie]

12:43 PM on 06/22/2011

Two guys with an idea...and a Stanford education. When I read stories like this one, I become depressed at how public education is declining, and private education excels, if you can afford it. This disparity is not a good formula for the future of this country.

[ZeFoussa]

01:17 PM on 06/22/2011

Just think of Microsoft and Apple then. Gates and Jobs can make you feel better.

[theveggiedude]

04:04 PM on 06/22/2011

Public education is putting China and India way ahead of the US in graduating more engineers each year, so the formula does work well. It's just not applied properly in some places.

[wonderYrednow]

03:33 AM on 06/23/2011

Why do I get the 'feeling' there are Republic fingers being applied to my 'somewhere'?

"No Child FROM Behind"

[MMSpooner]

12:41 PM on 06/22/2011

I billion users? Ha! See if they can do that with hamburgers.......