Social networking stock Facebook Inc. (
NYSE: FB,
Stock Forum) was in the spotlight Thursday as the shares jumped 27% to $33.64 and investors applauded strong quarterly results.
But CNN Money is highlighting the fact that Google Inc. (
NASDAQ: GOOG,
Stock Forum) accounts for nearly a quarter of Internet traffic in North America, according to a recent study conducted by analytics firm Deepfield.
That makes Google’s Internet presence bigger than Facebook, Netflix Inc. (
NASDAQ: NFLX,
Stock Forum) and Twitter’s combined, according to the report.
In 2010, Google represented just 6% of Internet traffic.
“What’s really interesting is, over just the past year, how pervasive Google has become, not just in Google data centers, but throughout the North American internet,’’ says Craig Labovitz, founder of Deepfield, the internet monitoring company that crunched the data in an interview with Wired Magazine.
His probes show that more than 62% of the smartphones, laptops, video streamers, and other devices that tap into the internet from throughout the North America connect to Google at least once a day.
Labovitz calls Google’s traffic “astounding.” “The Lion’s share of it comes from Youtube. But Google traffic involving search, analytics, web apps, and advertising is far from insignificant.
Google was off 1.2% to $892 on Thursday, leaving the company with a market cap of $295.9 billion, based on 331.7 million shares outstanding. The 52-week range is $928 and $605.4.
Meanwhile, even after today’s rally Facebook is still trading below the 2012 IPO price of $38.