Yahoo beats Google in U.S. web traffic in July, says comScore

Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer probably had an extra bounce in her step when she arrived at the company’s Sunnyvale headquarters on Thursday after data showed Yahoo topped Google as the most visited website in the U.S. in July. 

It is the first time since May 2011 that Yahoo has taken top honors in comScore’s monthly ranking of U.S. web activity.

Yahoo received 196.6 million unique visitors in July, while Google logged 192.3 million, the digital analysis group said.

Microsoft sites placed third, while Facebook and AOL were fourth and fifth. 

Yahoo’s traffic haul does not include data from social networking site Tumblr, which it bought earlier this year for $1.1 billion. 

Mayer, a former Google executive who took over Yahoo in July 2012, has been working hard to turn around the search engine giant, which has seen its revenues stall in recent years as consumers and advertisers favored rivals such as Google and Facebook.

Shares in Yahoo have nearly doubled during Mayer’s tenure, and the latest comScore data suggests her efforts to make Yahoo websites easier to use are bearing fruit. 

But it is worth remembering that the comScore data fluctuates month to month, so Mayer is probably leaving the champagne in the fridge for now.