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Google could soon overtake Yahoo! to become the most popular Web search engine.

WebSideStory, a provider of online user behaviour analysis services, said Google's popularity had soared dramatically over the last two years and could outpace Yahoo! soon at its current growth rate.

At April 24 Google accounted for 31.87 per cent of all search referrals worldwide, up from 1 per cent in June 2000.

Yahoo! is still ahead with 36.35 per cent, but the once-dominant search portal's percentage has dropped by 46 per cent since June 2000.

Microsoft's portal MSN trails far behind in third place with 12.73 per cent.

The survey's search referral statistic is the percentage of daily Internet users that arrive at a Web page through a search site.

Geoff Johnston, vice-president of product marketing for StatMarket said: 'Yahoo! is seeing viable competition among search engines. Despite Yahoo!'s brand recognition, the numbers show that surfers feel confident going directly to Google to search the Web.'

The survey result is hardly surprising as Google's search results are widely considered among the Web's most reliable.

A survey last month from a United States Web researcher OneStat.com showed that Google drew the largest global search audience on the Web, with nearly 46 per cent of surfers using its site. Yahoo! came in second with a 20.6 per cent usage, and MSN followed with a 7.8 per cent reach. America Online's service was seventh, attracting 1.8 per cent of users.

A Jupiter Media Metrix report in March on search engines used by the US online population ranked Google the top with 24.1 per cent, followed by Altavista with 18 per cent, AskJeeves in third place with 16.2 per cent and Yahoo! in fourth with 10.7 per cent.

Google has agreements with Yahoo! and Netscape to provide back-end search capability for visitors conducting searches on their sites.

'Yahoo's use of Google's search capabilities seems to have increased Google's visibility,' Mr Johnston added.

Google's back-end service is not included in WebSideStory's figures. Only visitors who search directly from Google's site are included in its usage share.



Google closes in on Yahoo! for search top spot