Facebook gains strength but Google is still the daddy

[Commentary] Facebook now attracts more visits from users in the US than Google. It would not do to make too much of the comparison.

After all, there is no question about who the money-earner is. The $23 billion (€17bn, £15bn) in revenues that Google generated last year dwarfs the $500 million forecast by Facebook, which is still hunting around for the best way to make money from its social networking site. It is also clear that Google continues to exert far greater influence over online behavior, even if Facebook's hold on its users is starting to register as more than just a blip on the web landscape. The true measure of influence online is just not the number of hits a site receives, or even the amount of time users spend there in aggregate (Facebook already wins that one hands down). Rather, it has much to do with the amount of traffic sites direct around the web. Google is still the main gatekeeper, determining through its algorithms where searchers are directed - though Facebook is starting to show up as a more important referrer of traffic to many media sites.