After almost a decade of decline, former online giant Yahoo has regained the pole position in online traffic. Yahoo’s network of web properties attracted more traffic than Google during the month of July – a first for the company since May of 2011.
The company’s network of websites attracted 196 million users in July – an increase of 21 percent during the last twelve months. ComScore, which measures web traffic, claims that the company’s websites attracted 4.3 million more visitors than Google.
Yahoo has been involved in a long-term turnaround effort aimed at returning the once dominant company to the online top spot. CEO Marissa Mayer has motivated the company to improve its services in order to attract a greater number of users.
Yahoo has revised its homepage and weather services over the past year to attract more traffic from households. The company has also redesigned its email services, which are used by over 281 million people around the world.
Despite the growth in traffic, Yahoo’s revenue has thus far failed to impress many in the technology industry. The company earned $1.07 billion in the first quarter – not far below analysts’ estimates of $1.08 billion, but far from confidence inspiring.
The user data does not include information for Tumblr, a new web property bought by Yahoo earlier this year. The company spent $1.1 billion to acquire the network of blogs, which has growth to reach more than 300 million worldwide users.
Google, which is significantly more popular than Yahoo for search users, attracted a total of 192 million users in July. Many of these were users browsing Google’s video websites YouTube, which displays the company’s display advertising product.
While Yahoo’s revenue growth is currently failing to keep up with its increase in users, the new traffic is certainly a good sign. As Mayer noted in a conference call with Yahoo employees, it’s very rare for an established company to see a surge in traffic after years of gradual decline.
