For the first time in more than two years, Yahoo has topped Google in the number of unique U.S. visitors to its sites. In the 140-character daily news churn, that headline gives Yahoo a big victory today. But winning the news cycle and resurrecting a business are hardly the same thing. The numbers tell the story: Yahoo had about 196.6 million unique visitors in July, according to comScore. Google had about 192.3 million — a difference of little more than 2 percent. More importantly, Yahoo’s first-place ranking in no way represents a surge relative to Google. The two sites have long hovered close to one another in the top two spots. Yes, Yahoo is up 8 million visitors compared to June. But it was down 4 million from the month before that. The numbers may be trending positively for Yahoo, but overall, they signify little more than typical traffic fluctuations for what have long been the web’s top two sites, says Andrew Lipsman, comScore vice president of industry analysis. “There is this perception that [Yahoo] was further behind to begin with, and that’s not the case,” Lipsman told WIRED. “Yahoo has been a very close second here for the last few months and has always been one of the top few properties.” Read more http://www.wired.com/business/2013/08/yahoo-beats-google/
